The search through the remnants of an ammunition plant in central Tennessee shifted Saturday to a mission to recover the remains of the missing, as hope of finding signs of life all but vanished after an explosion a day earlier, officials said.
So far, the search had not yielded any survivors, officials said.
Authorities have yet to provide an exact death toll from the blast. Sixteen people remain unaccounted for. And in an emotional news conference, Sheriff Chris Davis of Humphreys County, Tennessee, said the search had shifted to a recovery effort. He acknowledged that the prospects of finding anyone else alive had grown dismal.
“We can assume they are deceased at this point,” Davis said at a news conference Saturday. He choked up as he tried to explain the gravity of the devastation on his community. “It’s a great loss,” he said.
Officials had initially said that 19 people were missing, but three people believed to be at the facility turned out to be alive and safe elsewhere.
Beyond that, officials said, the findings were grim and devastating. Investigators were using DNA to try to identify remains found at the site.
An emergency medical helicopter and an ambulance were standing by, a reflection of the danger posed to the few hundred law enforcement officers who were combing through the debris, officials said. The highly volatile materials at the site had become even more unpredictable after becoming exposed to heat and pressure during the explosion, officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Saturday.
Because of that, the search has been “very delicate, very methodical,” Davis said.
“We were already going slow, and we’re slowing things down even more,” Jason Craft, sheriff of Hickman County, said at the news conference. (The plant straddles both Hickman and Humphreys counties.)
The explosion happened around 7:45 a.m. Central time at the plant roughly 60 miles west of Nashville, in a wooded area just off Interstate 40. The plant is operated by Accurate Energetic Systems, a company that produces explosives and demolition charges for the U.S. military and the domestic blasting industry.
The blast was so powerful that it leveled one of the roughly half-dozen buildings in the complex. Residents over a dozen miles away said the explosion felt like it had happened just outside their homes. The immediate aftermath was a fiery stretch of mangled metal and debris and the singed remains of vehicles that had been parked outside.
The rubble covered an area of roughly half of a square mile, authorities said.
The explosion triggered a series of smaller blasts, with officials warning there could be more because of the combustible material at the site. It also produced a cascade of anguish in a rural and tightly knit community, where it quickly became clear that some employees of the plant had not survived.
“You want me to be honest? It’s hell,” said Davis, who, in recurring news conferences, has emerged as the primary spokesperson of both the official investigation and the anguished and bewildered community.
“It’s hell on us,” he said in an update Friday. “It’s hell on everybody involved.”
He had personal ties to some people who had been directly affected, he said. “There’s three families in this I’m very close to.”
But he added that his circumstances would hardly be unique, given the small population of the area and the widespread connections that many residents have to the plant. “We know each other,” he said.
The area, a hilly and heavily wooded patch of rural Middle Tennessee, had experienced tragedy before. In 2021, flash floods transformed creek beds, roadways and neighborhoods into a rushing river in an instant, pulling apart loved ones clutched in each other’s arms and sweeping away screaming neighbors. The floods killed 20 people and destroyed homes, businesses and churches.
This weekend, once again, a disaster stirred confusion and an agonizing wait for clarity about the extent of the toll.
“We had the flood, and now, we have this,” said Jacob Pointer, 21, working at a smoke shop in Waverly, the seat of Humphreys County and one of the towns worst hit by the flood.
Like many others, he had a connection to the ammunition plant, which is near Bucksnort, Tennessee, a blip of unincorporated territory, and the small town of McEwen. The husband of one of his co-workers is employed there. Friday was his day off.
Many knew the work involving explosives could be dangerous, Pointer said. One man was killed and four others were injured in 2014 in an explosion at the same site in an area operated by a different company. Officials said multiple companies have operated there.
But Accurate Energetic Systems was a significant employer in the area. “They keep a lot of families fed around here,” Pointer said.
The plant employs around 75 people across five production centers and a lab, according to a page about the company posted by the Association of the United States Army, which lists Accurate Energetic Systems as a sponsor. The 1,300-acre property caters to all branches of the U.S. military, according to the association’s page, as well as international military and law enforcement agencies.
Since 2020, Accurate Energetic Systems has received tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts, mostly from the Army, supplying explosives used in weapons work, according to government records.
In a brief statement posted on the company’s website, Accurate Energetic Systems acknowledged the “tragic accident” and the ongoing investigation. “We extend our gratitude to all first-responders who continue to work tirelessly under difficult conditions,” the company said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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