BUCKSNORT, Tenn. — At least 19 people were missing after a powerful explosion ripped through a central Tennessee ammunition plant early Friday, rattling residents for miles and leaving a half-square-mile of fiery, smoking debris that could still trigger more explosions.
Officials said it was not yet clear what had caused the blast, which destroyed an entire building at the facility. “It’s gone,” Sheriff Chris Davis of Humphreys County, Tennessee, said at a news conference, adding that the death toll remained unclear.
“I can tell you we are missing 19 souls right now,” he said. “It’s hell on everybody.”
The chaotic and volatile situation was unleashed by an explosion on the early shift, followed by a series of smaller blasts that might have been munitions.
Afterward, families of missing employees gathered at one gate of the plant, waiting for hours to hear if their loved ones had survived.
Among those missing was Rachel Woodall, whose boyfriend, Nathan Birchard, was standing outside the facility Friday afternoon, waiting for authorities to share more information with him and Woodall’s family, including her twin sister. Before he drove out to the facility, he wrote a message on Facebook: “I don’t get on here and say much at all, but please pray for my girlfriend.”
The 1,300-acre campus is roughly 60 miles west of Nashville, in a rural wooded area just off Interstate 40. The explosion was strong enough to generate a plume of smoke that showed up on the weather radar of a Nashville television station.
People who live miles away thought the explosion had happened on their own property. “It was that strong and that loud,” said Lauren Roark, who was just waking up at home in nearby McEwen.
The facility in Bucksnort is operated by Accurate Energetic Systems, which produces TNT and several other explosives used by the military and mining companies. The plant employs around 75 people spread across five production facilities and a lab, who load, assemble and pack explosive charges and munitions.
Aerial videos of the site showed numerous small fires burning amid rubble, along with what appeared to be dozens of small neon-green canisters on the ground.
Photos on the company’s website show that one of the products made at the plant is a series of booster charges made of TNT encased in small cylinders that are similarly bright green. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
TNT booster charges play a key role in commercial blasting and quarrying, as they are the most common method of initiating massive columns of ammonium-nitrate-based explosives to break apart tens or hundreds of thousands of tons of rock at a time.
The typical fabrication process is considered highly dangerous, as particles of explosives can become airborne and can be highly sensitive to heat, shock, friction and electrostatic discharges. For that reason, workers in so-called melt-pour facilities usually wear respirators to keep such particles out of their airways as well as protective clothing made of natural fibers that will not produce static electricity.
Workers in those areas are also generally prohibited from carrying personal electronics, out of concern that a camera or cellphone could inadvertently cause airborne explosive particles to burn or blow up and lead to a mass detonation of the material being handled inside.
Davis said that the cause of the explosion was being investigated by multiple agencies, including the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The same area of Tennessee was the scene of a disaster four years ago, when heavy rains unleashed powerful flash floods that swept through the hilly and heavily wooded expanse. Twenty people were killed in the floods.
That disaster is already weighing on the current one. In news conferences Friday, the sheriff said he was holding back from divulging much specific information about the explosion, including the death toll, until he could speak with absolute certainty.
In the hours and days after the flood, the number of people who were unaccounted for fluctuated considerably.
“We had some mistakes during the flood,” Davis said, referring to “some things put out in terms of names and numbers and that kind of thing.”
“I don’t want that today,” he said.
State Rep. Jody Barrett, a Republican whose district is just outside the county where Accurate Energetic Systems is headquartered, said in an interview that a number of his constituents work at the company. Barrett said the company has provided well-paying jobs in the rural area for more than 20 years.
Ava Hinson said her son, Jeremy Moore, had been working there for nearly two decades. He had dropped his daughter off with Hinson before heading to work at the plant. He was still missing Friday afternoon.
“We don’t know where he is,” Hinson said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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