Unity residents concerned as recovery search for woman continues in abandoned mine

Chris Kondrich wasn’t shocked to learn a sinkhole had opened a street away from his Upper Marguerite home in Unity.

A former firefighter and longtime hazardous materials volunteer, Kondrich said he has seen plenty of mine subsidence incidents.

Kondrich lives on Lemmon Road, about a quarter-mile from where Elizabeth Pollard, 64, of Unity is believed to have been swallowed by a sinkhole Monday evening. She remained missing Wednesday evening, and the search has changed from a rescue mission to a recovery operation, authorities announced.

The woods surrounding the sinkhole show evidence of smaller mine collapses, Kondrich said.

“You’ll just be walking and you’ll see … a big circle 20 feet in diameter that’s sunk 5 feet, grass and weeds growing on it,” he said. “That’s commonplace here.”

Kondrich, 64, has paid for mine subsidence insurance for his home for more than 30 years. The township surrounds Latrobe, and it’s located between Greensburg and Ligonier. Though it used to be made up of coal mining towns, Unity is now mostly residential, but it still has a lot of agriculture, Kondrich said.

“I think there’s always a concern,” he said of having to purchase the insurance. “If they’re gonna sell it to you, that means there was mining done in your area and something like this is possible.”

Pennsylvanians can check their address in Penn State’s online mine map atlas and the DEP’s mine subsidence insurance map to see if their property sits above abandoned mines.

The sinkhole opened in a grassy area behind Monday’s Union Restaurant. Investigators believe Pollard drove to the parking lot behind the restaurant, spoke with two hunters, handed them a flyer about her missing cat and walked into in the adjacent field when a sinkhole opened beneath her.

LIVE: I’m here outside of Monday’s Union Restaurant in Unity, where emergency crews have been searching around the clock for a woman believed to have fallen into a sinkhole.

Follow along with me for social media coverage of the scene @TribLIVE pic.twitter.com/9RiAQjtD5o

— Megan Swift (@mgswift7) December 4, 2024

Unity’s mining history

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Bureau of Mine Safety was dispatched to the scene early Tuesday. Officials said they suspect the sinkhole was caused by the abandoned Marguerite Mine, which was last operated by H.C. Frick Coke Co. in 1952.

The coal seam is about 20 feet from the surface, spokesperson Lauren Camarda said. Westmoreland County is one of the state’s 29 counties where underground coal mining has occurred, she said.

Merle Musick, building code official with Unity, said the former entrance to the Marguerite Mine was a dilapidated red building near the sinkhole.

“Western Pennsylvania’s full of mines, and not all of them are mapped,” he said.

NEW: Hearing that the red building (red arrow) is the old entrance to the Marguerite Mine, which closed in 1952, according to officials.

The blue arrow is where the sinkhole opened @TribLIVE pic.twitter.com/W0EcXLLvYr

— Megan Swift (@mgswift7) December 4, 2024

“All these little towns, they sprung up — they’re called (coal) patch towns,” Kondrich said.

Ongoing search

Pollard was reported missing at 1 a.m. Tuesday, and crews have been working nonstop since about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday to locate her. A camera dropped into the sinkhole revealed a shoe about 25 feet below ground level.

The search in the sinkhole paused briefly Wednesday until it was better stabilized.

Officials said the search will be limited to dawn to dusk beginning Thursday.

“Since then, they have stabilized the hole or the situation, and they are currently digging some of the dirt out,” said Mike O’Barto, chairman of the Unity Township supervisors. “I do know that they were going to use some different technology such as drones, such as imaging, to see if they can, indeed, find Elizabeth Pollard.”

Kondrich arrived at Monday’s Union Restaurant around lunchtime Wednesday to deliver food for those working on the scene.

“The incident took place here on the property of Monday’s restaurant, but it’s not their responsibility to feed us,” he said.

His donation was 100 pieces of chicken from Giant Eagle, which joined the donuts, coffee, hoagies, pizza and other offerings already available for the responders.

Community members have shown up in a big way here at the site of the sinkhole in Unity.

People donated food for the workers, and there’s a whole spread inside Monday’s Union Restaurant @TribLIVE pic.twitter.com/oglGgmaPen

— Megan Swift (@mgswift7) December 4, 2024

There hasn’t been an organized effort to supply the food and drinks or any sort of push via social media; Kondrich said people have just shown up to help without being asked.

“I think it’s just the community sense of responsibility or sense of need to help that people want to do something,” Kondrich said. “The responders … they need to eat, they need stuff to drink, they need to stay warm.”

When Kondrich was on the scene Tuesday night into Wednesday, he said there were at least 120 people working.

“Monday’s is being gracious opening up their establishment here for a warm place to sit and have something to eat,” he said.

Prior to showing up with chicken, Kondrich asked the restaurant Wednesday what people had donated so as not to bring duplicates.

“I actually stopped in and said, ‘What do you need?’” Kondrich said. “I would say the best thing to do is to call.”

Mining concerns

Unity was a longtime hotspot for coal mines, O’Barto said, and the sinkhole has caused a stir among residents.

“There are a lot of people in the community that have concerns that if they live close — especially to an area that had coal mines at one time,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons why we need to look at these areas, so a situation like this never happens again.”

The main course of action should be talking to Pennsylvania lawmakers and mine safety organizations, O’Barto said.

“We have to get together with our state legislators to see what type of funding may be out there to prevent something like this from happening again,” he said.

As a Unity homeowner, O’Barto said the situation concerns him personally.

“There have been sinkholes before, and they were cases that would come up every so often, but never one where a person fell into one,” he said. “My heart goes out to the family.”