VIDEOS: The families of the 16 victims killed in the devastating blast at a Tennessee explosive plant have been notified, authorities said at a Saturday news conference.
No one has been found alive in the search and investigators are working through the scene foot by foot, Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said.
Earlier officials thought 18 people were missing but they were able to locate two people off site, officials said.
“We’re moving to recovery,” Davis said with emotion during a news conference one day after the blast, his voice trailing off at times. “At this time, we have recovered no survivors.”
“As we get into this, we find it even more devastating than what we thought initially,” he added.
Early Friday, the thundering blast at Accurate Energetic Systems reverberated across a tight-knit community, razing an entire building on the plant’s sprawling campus.
The recovery effort was being made “more volatile” with the presence of ordnance at the site, and investigators were working with the FBI to use cell phone technology to figure out what happened at the time of the explosion, Davis said. Investigators were also using DNA to try to identify the remains of victims.
Melissa Dawn Stanford, a 53-year-old production supervisor at the plant, is believed to have died, her niece, Brittany Kirouac, told CNN in a statement Saturday. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation informed Kirouac they don’t believe her aunt could have survived, she said.
“To say our family is devastated is to put it lightly. We are honestly at a loss for words and grief is not linear. In the past 24 hours I have seen: anger, sadness, bargaining, denial, and acceptance,” Kirouac said.
“Not only from our family, but from the families who surrounded us waiting to hear news about their loved ones,” she continued. “At this time, we are just hoping to bring her home to say goodbye.”
Kirouac asked for prayers as her family, like so many others, attempts to “navigate these coming days, weeks, and months.”
Davis said more than 300 people had searched “almost every square inch” of the plant. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ elite National Response Team, which provides a range of specialists who investigate bombings and wildfires, is part of the complicated recovery operation.
“I never want to give up hope. Hope’s always been my heart, but I don’t want to give false hope either,” Davis said.
“We need our communities to come together and understand that we’ve lost a lot of people. This don’t only affect those families, it runs deeper โฆ this could be people that you grew up with,” Davis said, noting one victim was a childhood friend of his.
The explosion occurred during an early shift at Accurate Energetic Systems, a manufacturer of military and demolition explosives that employs scores of local residents.
KMBC-TV ABC 9 Kansas City
