Background
The sugar refinery was a four-story structure on the bank of the Savannah River that Sugar Land, Texas-based Imperial Sugar had acquired from a previous local owner. Known since construction as the Dixie Crystals refinery, Dixie Crystals being a brand name owned by Imperial since the purchase, it was the main employer in the town of 3,500 prior to the disaster. It was constructed in 1916 by 400 people who moved from Louisiana specifically for the purpose, opened the following year and became Imperial's property in 1997 when the latter bought 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. The refinery sat on a 160 acres (0.65 km2; 0.25 sq mi) site and was spread across 872,000 square feet (81,000 m2) of it. This makes it the second largest in the US.
Workers described the factory as antiquated, with much of the machinery dating back more than 28 years, but say the site was kept in operation 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 the company 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 Sugar had run into financial difficulties. In the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007 sales fell 8%, while profits were down 50% from that year's fourth quarter and stock also down by half since April 2007. The last two annual reports by Imperial before the explosion stated 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 U.S. Chemical Safety Board - which went on to investigate the disaster at Port Wentworth — conducted a study into the risks presented by dust explosions after three fatal accidents in the year before. The West Pharmaceutical Services explosion killed six, the CTA Acoustics fiberglass insulation manufacturing plant explosion killed seven and the Hayes Lemmerz automotive parts plant explosion killed one, prompting the report. It found that dust explosions posed a severe risk and made a number of recommendations to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which remain only partially acted upon. The board continued to be concerned about the potential for further fatal accidents up until Imperial's refinery was the scene of an explosion.
Read more about this topic: 2008 Georgia Sugar Refinery Explosion
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