SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. (AP) Huge storage silos lay crumbled on the ground and sugar was scattered up to a mile away yesterday after an explosion described as "a ball of blue flames" ripped through a major sugar refinery One person was missing an 15 others were injured, one critically
The blast followed a bolt of lightning, one witness said. Company officials said sugar dust may have been ignited."I saw the factory. It was just horrible as I imagined," President Tom Chandler said. "We have a major disaster on our hands."Some 150 people work at the Western Sugar Co. plant in this extreme western Nebraska town, just 20 miles from Wyoming. But only 31 were in the plant when the explosion occurred late Saturday.
"We are counting our blessings it could have been much worse," said Mayor Mark Harris. "This happened on a weekend, so no one was in the offices."In addition, those workers in the plant apparently were just returning from a break, plant manager Owen palm said.Officials said yesterday that all employees had been laid off, adding that they hoped it would be temporary and that the plant would be ready to reopen in 60 days. Union officials set up a crises intervention center.
Officials believed the missing person, Gene Juergens, was trapped somewhere inside the factory, but unstable structures forced a suspension of the search. Harris said searchers hoped that the missing man somehow survived theblast. "Perhaps some pockets developed where the rubble did not have a crushing effect," he said.
The explosion leveled seven of eight silos and scattered plywood and sugar up to a mile away around this city of 14,100 people. A eighth silo leaned dangerously, held up by the sugar it still contained.Plant offices lay open to the street, their front walls blown away, but Harris said some parts of the plant did not appear heavily damaged. Damage was estimated at more than $10 million.
People driving past the factory said the blast made three cars jump and bounce. Lee Prouty told the Scottsbluff Star-Herald it moved his pickup about 20 feet."We had just seen some lightning and the next thing we say was a big blue ball of flames," Prouty said. "The fire ball must have been 500-600 feet around."
The cause of the blast was not immediately known.Farm safety specialist Tollin Schnieder of Davey said fine airborne sugar dust, like grain dust, can ignite explosively."You have one explosion and then another one and that triggers a third one," said Schnieder, now retired. "That's all going to take place in about two seconds."
The plant is one of six run by Western Sugar that processes sugar beets into refined sugar and molasses, and turns the beet pulp into pellets used as cattle feed.