On 7 February 2008, fourteen people were killed and thirty six injured during a dust explosion at an Imperial Sugar owned refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia, United States. Dust explosions had been an issue of concern among U.S. authorities since three fatal accidents in 2003, with efforts made to improve safety and reduce the risk of reoccurrence.
The Port Wentworth refinery was large and old, featuring outdated construction methods, factors which are believed to have contributed to the fire's severity. The origin of the explosion was narrowed down to the center of the factory, in a basement located beneath storage silos. Large accumulations of sugar dust due to poor housekeeping became airborne from the shock waves, leading to a series of massive secondary explosions spreading throughout the factory. Investigations conducted by the Department of Justice ruled out deliberate criminal activity in 2013.
As a result of the industrial disaster, new safety legislation was proposed. Port Wentworth's economy declined because the factory was closed down. Imperial intended to rebuild it and return to production by the end of 2008, with replacement buildings to be completed by summer the following year. Some victims filed up to 44 lawsuits for damages against Imperial and/or the company hired to clean up the site; eighteen have been settled. Imperial said that the explosion was the main reason for a major loss in the first quarter of 2008.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board released its report on the incident in September 2009, saying that the explosion had been "entirely preventable". Investigations by Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) reached similar conclusions.
Background
Imperial Sugar's refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia, was a four-story structure on the bank of the Savannah River. Imperial, based in Sugar Land, Texas, had bought the refinery and its brand name in 1997 from a previous local owner. Known since construction as the Dixie Crystal refinery, it was the main employer in Port Wentworth, a town of 3,500, prior to the disaster.
The Port Wentworth refinery was constructed in 1916 by 400 people who were moved from Louisiana specifically for this purpose, and opened the following year. Imperial bought the refinery together with Savannah Foods to form part of a national supply and distribution network to meet demand from businesses such as Piggly Wiggly, General Mills and Wal-Mart. This network was the second largest in the United States.
The refinery sat on a site and was spread across . Workers described the factory as antiquated, with much of the machinery dating back more than twenty-eight years. The site had continued operating because it had good access to rail and shipping links for transport.
In the last full fiscal year before the disaster, which ended on September 30, 2007, the facility refined 14.51 million hundredweight of sugar, 9% of the nation's requirements, compared to Imperial's Gramercy, Louisiana, refinery, which refined 11.08 million hundredweight of sugar in the same time period. 90% of the raw sugar supplied to the facility came from overseas in that year, and Imperial expected the "vast majority" to come in from abroad in the year of the explosion as well.
In the time leading up to the explosion, Imperial had run into financial difficulties. In the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, sales had fallen eight percent while the company's profits and stock price had fallen by half. The last two annual reports by Imperial before the explosion said that any damage to the facility at Port Wentworth would "have a material effect on the company's business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows".
Meanwhile, in 2004 the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) conducted a study into the risks presented by dust explosions after three fatal accidents in the year before. The West Pharmaceutical Services explosion in North Carolina killed six persons, the CTA Acoustics explosion in Kentucky killed seven, and the Hayes Lemmerz explosion in Indiana killed one, prompting the report. The CSB found that between 1980 and 2005, there had been 281 explosions involving combustible dust, resulting in 119 deaths and 718 injuries. The agency made a number of recommendations to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which had been partly implemented by 2008. The CSB continued to be concerned about the potential for further fatal accidents up until the explosion at the Imperial refinery in Port Wentworth.