5 killed, several missing in blast that destroyed Georgia sugar refinery; cause still unknown

As his two nephews lay unconscious in their hospital beds, bandages covering horrific burns from a sugar refinery fire, Hallie Capers prayed and asked them aloud how they were doing.

He knew John Calvin Butler Jr. and his younger brother, Jamie, couldn't hear him. They were still in a medically induced coma Saturday, two days after a massive explosion and fire devastated the refinery.

"It's just shocking to me to really see it, to walk in and see them like that — how bad they were, their faces, hands, arms, their whole bodies," Capers said by phone from the Joseph M. Still burn center in Augusta.

Families and co-workers of 20 refinery employees hospitalized with severe burns, including 17 in medically induced comas, anxiously awaited any sign of recovery on Saturday.

"It's just hours of waiting right now," said Capers, a Baptist minister from Hampton, S.C. "We pray and hope that when we do get some news, it'll be good news."

Good news was scarce Saturday as firefighters pulled another body from the plant outside Savannah, raising the death toll to five. Three men still remained missing.

The search was halted at sunset because the debris-strewn refinery remained too hazardous for nighttime searches.

Fire Chief Greg Long said the body was found near the plant's three 80-foot storage silos, one of which ignited like a bomb during the night shift Thursday.

The blast and fire left much of the massive plant dangerously unstable, and crews had to shore up the sagging upper floors in a four-story building Saturday before resuming searching for the missing men.

Firefighters had all but extinguished the fire that had raged in the refinery since the explosion.

Officials clung to slim hope that the missing men could be found alive, Long said.

"We operate on the policy that everyone is alive until we get to them," he said.

Family members of the dead and missing, whose names have not been released, hugged and wept outside a Catholic church near the plant where they have gotten daily briefings from emergency officials.

Plant employees left a meeting with company officials in a somber mood.

A worried Douglas Milton, who works in the packaging area that took the brunt of the blast, said he's tried unsuccessfully to reach several co-workers in the plant at the time of the explosion.

"Some guys on my floor, I haven't heard anything about them," said Milton, 37, who has worked at the refinery for seven years. "I've been calling a lot of their cell phone numbers, but I'm not getting any answers."

Dr. Jeff Mullins, the burn center's medical director, said 17 workers remained in critical condition. Three others were in serious condition.

"They're going to remain in critical condition for a period of time just because of the depth of the burns," Mullins said. "They could be in the hospital for six-plus months."

More than 10 other patients treated at hospitals in Savannah had all been discharged by Saturday.

Imperial Sugar was one of the largest and oldest employers in this city of 5,000. The vast refinery was a network of warehouses, silos and buildings eight stories tall connected by corridors of sheet metal.

Investigators with the Georgia Fire Marshal's office, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the U.S. Chemical Safety Board began arriving Saturday to determine the cause of the explosion.

Imperial President and CEO John Sheptor has said sugar dust in a silo used to store refined sugar before packaging likely ignited like gunpowder. Sugar dust can be combustible if it's too dry and builds up a static electric charge.

Company officials have refused to speculate on when the plant might reopen, saying structural engineers needed to examine the damage.

Sheptor said Saturday the company will continue to pay employees for the time being, but would not say for how long.

More than 300 dust explosions have killed more than 120 works in grain silos, sugar plants and food processing plants over the past three decades. Most are preventable by removing fine dust as it builds up, experts say.

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Associated Press writers Ron Word in Savannah and Errin Haines in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

Imperial Sugar: http://www.imperialsugar.com/