McEWEN, Tenn. (AP) — The blast in rural Tennessee that leveled an explosives plant and was felt for miles around left no survivors, authorities said Saturday.
The total number of dead was unclear, as was the cause of the Friday blast. By the weekend, the devastation came into focus, with officials saying they had found no survivors. A total of 16 people were missing, officials said.
“There’s a gauntlet of emotions there,” Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said during a news conference, pausing to clear his throat before he asked for prayers for the families of the victims in a shaky voice.
“We’ve recovered no survivors,” he added.
A lot of explosions at similar facilities had significant warning, unfortunately. While the detonation itself tends to be instant, they usually have rules about how densely explosives are packed, fire control systems, and systems to maximize the time between problem and disaster.
They probably knew something was wrong and that it was bad, but not how bad.
This same facility had an explosion in 2014 that resulted in death. The fact that they didn’t learn from that and chose to continue to be reckless is sad and infuriating.
So I looked into it, briefly, and it looks like that incident was a different company who rented space in their complex.
That isn’t better for them now, but there’s a difference between negligence and renting to the negligent.