A person living near the highway painted a road divider asking for prayers for the family of Accurate Energetic Systems in McEwen, Tennessee. Photo / Austin Anthony, The New York Times
Gary Moore walked into the coffee shop in downtown McEwen, Tennessee, his face worn from a long night.
He had to get out of his house, he said, where the sound of the blast at the explosives plant on Saturday (NZT) kept haunting him.
It was the first time other customers at the shop had seen him since his son, Jeremy, 37, had been lost in the explosion.
A man embraced him, whispering condolences as Moore’s eyes filled with tears. Someone handed him a cup of coffee.
Then they began trading names: who else might have been there when the explosion levelled an entire building, and which other families might have been asked to do a rapid DNA test for identification.
“You can’t even fathom this at all,” said Moore, 67.
Interviews around the region at the weekend made it clear that the plant, owned by Accurate Energetic Systems, has been an economic bedrock for the small communities scattered across rural Hickman and Humphreys counties.
One day after the catastrophic explosion, it seemed almost everyone knew someone who worked there or who had at some point, if they didn’t work there themselves.
The facility, which straddles the county line, is one of the things that unites the two counties, which also share close-knit towns, a strong Christian faith and a deep appreciation for country life around the hills and creeks of Middle Tennessee.
It is now a source of widespread grief, as hundreds of federal, state and local officials continue a grim, painstaking search for remains amid potentially dangerous debris.
Yesterday, officials confirmed that the 16 people who were missing were presumed dead. Earlier, they said no survivors had been found.
“Some people may feel isolated or alone with this, but the Lord is close to those with a broken heart,” said Pastor Tim Farris of Hurricane Chapel Freewill Baptist Church in McEwen, which held a prayer vigil for community members.
Dozens of people were employed either full- or part-time at the plant, where the hourly wage for shift work was higher than at other local workplaces.
On a 525ha campus roughly 100km west of Nashville, workers were spread out across several buildings where they loaded, assembled and packed explosive charges and munitions.
“They’re well-loved in the area, and they’ve been just a good community member,” state Senator Kerry Roberts, who represents both counties in the Tennessee General Assembly, said in an interview.
Some of the work at the plant involved military contracts, but it also processed the kind of explosives used for detonations at construction sites.
It was largely isolated from the residential areas, in part because of the hazardous materials being handled.
“It’s an honour to have it here,” said Roger Dale Hicks, 70, who heard the explosion from about 10km away. “It’s employing people to work so they can take care of their families.”
Former workers recounted the cotton clothing and steel-toed boots with a specific sole that they were required to wear to avoid the dangers of too much friction, impact, static or heat.
Jessica O’Daniel, who worked at the plant more than a decade ago and whose father still works there, recalled being shown safety videos as a new hire.
It was a job that undeniably came with some risk.
“They tell you right off the rip that it’s a high-risk job,” O’Daniel said. “You’re working with explosives every day, and any little thing can set it off.”
The building where the explosion occurred is known colloquially among workers as the “Melt Pour”, where workers poured explosives into tiny cups.
Those would eventually be used for blasting hilly terrain that needed to be flattened for future roads, O’Daniel said.
Her father, Jeff Wallace, who works part-time at the plant, wrote on Facebook yesterday that he was “wanting to wake up from this nightmare”.
“We have lost so many lifelong friends,” he wrote. “All their faces keep running through my head.”
It was not so long ago that the communities in the two counties circled together in the aftermath of devastating floods, in 2021.
Yesterday, many residents were protective of families whose relatives were at the plant when the explosion took place, declining to say much without their permission and quietly praying at church vigils.
At a scheduled church fundraiser in Waverly people silently bid on homemade butter cake, jars of canned pickles and jam, and festive baskets of decorations to raise money for the winter Angel Tree programme that brings Christmas gifts to children and older residents.
The explosion that happened just a short drive away was in people’s minds. Volunteers fielded questions about whether they were accepting donations for the families of those missing or lost.
Volunteers said they hoped to take leftover plates of catfish, hush puppies and vinegar coleslaw to those working at the scene of the disaster, including Sheriff Chris Davis of Humphreys County.
He was supposed to have been at the fundraiser; instead, he found himself holding back tears at news briefings and struggling to convey the magnitude of the loss.
“I was just really shaken by it, of course, thinking of the families and what they’re going to have to go through,” said Wendy Lee, a volunteer who has lived in Waverly for three decades.
Her son used to work at Accurate Energetic Systems, she said, and she couldn’t help thinking about all the people she had met through him who still work there.
Standing in the coffee shop yesterday, Moore spoke about his son’s love for fishing, hunting, family and God, though he made clear that “memories are just really heart-wrenching right now”.
Jeremy had worked at the facility for nearly two decades and had earned a promotion a few months ago, Moore said.
The workers, especially those who shared the same shifts, were almost like a family.
“It’s still shock right now that he’s gone,” Moore said.
“Your children are supposed to bury you.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Emily Cochrane and Eduardo Medina
Photographs by: Austin Anthony
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