PORT WENTWORTH - A powerful explosion that ignited in a storage silo at a sugar refinery killed at least four people, injured dozens of the more than 100 employees working the night shift and all but demolished the plant that's been a core part of this small community's economy for 90 years.
As firefighters pulled the four bodies from the rubble of the Imperial Sugar Company refinery Friday, anxious families gathered at the parish hall of a Catholic church across the street wept as officials gave them the grim news.
Savannah Police Sgt. Mike Wilson said the fourth body was located in the plant about 4 p.m. The other three were found earlier in the day. He said there may be as many as four more bodies still in the plant.
Savannah Fire Capt. Matthew Stanley said portions of the building still were smoldering, and firefighters would work through night to make sure the fire was out. He said no attempts would be made to find more bodies until today, when heavy equipment will be brought in to remove debris.
Imperial Sugar was one of the largest, and oldest, employers in this tiny city of 5,000 just a few miles west of Savannah. The sudden blast that rattled the city late Thursday engulfed the refinery in flames, and shook even those trained to face disaster with stoic resolve.
"I have friends that work at this plant," said Port Wentworth Fire Chief Greg Long. "I know the people that are over there at the church. Basically what went through my mind was hopefully I'll wake up and this will all be a dream."
Investigators had been unable to determine the cause of the explosion Friday as firefighters continued to suppress flames inside the vast refinery - a network of warehouses, silos and buildings eight stories tall connected by corridors of sheet metal.
The company's president and CEO, John Sheptor, said sugar dust in the silo - where refined sugar was stored before being packaged - likely ignited like gunpowder. Sugar dust can become combustible if it's too dry and builds up a static electric charge.
The result was as devastating as a bomb. Floors inside the plant collapsed, flames spread throughout the refinery, metal girders buckled into twisted heaps and shredded sheet metal littered the wreckage.
More than 30 employees were rushed to hospitals as ambulances lined up a dozen at a time outside the refinery's sole entrance road.
Several had to be airlifted to a burn center in Augusta, 130 miles up the Savannah River. Many were in critical condition, including some who were placed on ventilators, said Dr. William Wessinger, the medical director at Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah.