Tragedy brings Colorado community together
Posted: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 12:18 PM
By Peter Alexander, NBC News Correspondent
GEORGETOWN, Colo.– Halfway between Denver and the ski meccas of Vail and Breckenridge, the old Colorado mining town of Georgetown is stunned by the deaths of five contractors at Xcel Energy's hydroelectric plant.
Roughly 1,000 people live here full time, but the population swells when tourists come to see the gold-colored aspens in the fall and the snow in winter.
When the news first broke that workers were trapped, many residents feared a repeat of this summer's tragic mine disaster at the Crandall Canyon Mine in Huntington, Utah, where six miners were killed.
Unfortunately those fears were realized when the five workers trapped 1,000 feet underground, who had survived an initial chemical fire at the plant, died before rescue workers could reach them.
While investigators try to determine what caused the workers’ deaths, the local community is trying to come to grips with the tragedy.
Virginia Plett moved to Georgetown 11 years ago from a small town near Marseille, France. "It feels just like home," she said.
Plett and Eric Wohlfort work at the Georgetown Mountain Inn, which has been hosting a sudden influx of media from across the West and heartbroken members of this community who have stopped by.
"It brings people close together, but you just don't want this sort of thing to happen," said Plett.
Our conversation was interrupted when the phone rang. The inn's owner was calling. The Georgetown Mountain Inn would welcome the victims' families to stay there, if they liked, at no charge.
"It's the closeness of the community," Wohlfort explained. "We help each other out."
