Please purchase a Premium Subscription to continue reading.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.
We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.
A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means you’re helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
Support the Peninsula’s only locally-owned newspaper. Subscribe!
Subscribing annually brings you big savings. We also offer monthly and weekly subscriptions.
Premium Subscription
As low as $8.25 per week
Premium Includes:
-- Access to the Daily Journal’s e-Edition: a digital replica of our daily newspaper including crossword puzzles, games, comics, classifieds and ads. You can download a digital replica of the Daily Journal for offline reading. You can also clip & download articles or images from the e-edition to share with others The most recent 90 issues are available at any given time.
-- Unlimited access to our award-winning online content
-- Commenting access on all stories as a valued member of the DJ community
-- NEW! Access to our online-only digital crossword puzzle. A new puzzle every day, seven days a week!
Support the Peninsula’s only locally-owned newspaper. Subscribe!
Subscribing annually brings you big savings. We also offer monthly and weekly subscriptions.
DJ Basic Subscription
As low as $5 per month
Basic includes:
-- Unlimited access to our award-winning online content
-- Commenting access on all stories as a valued member of the DJ community
What you're missing -- Additional features available only with the Premium level:
-- Access to the Daily Journal’s e-Edition: a digital replica of our daily newspaper including crossword puzzles, games, comics, classifieds and ads. You can download a digital replica of the Daily Journal for offline reading. You can also clip & download articles or images from the e-edition to share with others The most recent 90 issues are available at any given time.
-- NEW! Access to our online-only digital crossword puzzle. A new puzzle every day, seven days a week!
A law enforcement officer guards a gate outside the Accurate Energetic Systems military explosives plant after an explosion at the facility in Bucksnort, Tenn., Friday.
McEWEN, Tenn. (AP) — A blast that leveled an explosives plant Friday in rural Tennessee left 19 people missing and feared dead, authorities said.
Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said the blast at Accurate Energetic Systems, which supplies the military, was one of worst scenes he's ever seen. He said multiple people were killed but declined to say how many, referring to the 19 missing as "souls" because officials were still speaking to family.
"There's nothing to describe. It's gone," Davis said of the plant.
A powerful blast ripped through a military explosives manufacturing plant in rural Tennessee on Friday morning, rattling homes miles away and bringing emergency responders to the scene, authorities and residents said.
People reported hearing and feeling the explosion from miles away. The company's website says it makes and tests explosives at an eight-building facility that sprawls across wooded hills in the Bucksnort area, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southwest of Nashville.
Davis said investigators are trying to determine what happened and couldn't say what caused the explosion.
The cause of the explosion, which Davis called "devastating," was not immediately known, and the investigation could take days, the sheriff said.
Aerial footage of the aftermath by WTVF-TV showed the explosion had apparently obliterated one of the facility's hilltop buildings, leaving only smoldering wreckage and the burnt-out shells of vehicles.
There's no further danger of explosions, and the scene was under control Friday afternoon, according to Grey Collier, a spokesperson for the Humphreys County Emergency Management Agency.
Recommended for you
Emergency crews were initially unable to enter the plant because of continuing detonations, Hickman County Advanced EMT David Stewart said by phone. He didn't have any details on casualties.
Accurate Energetic Systems, based in nearby McEwen, did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment Friday morning.
"This is a tragedy for our community," McEwen Mayor Brad Rachford said in an email. He referred further comment to a county official.
Residents in Lobelville, a 20-minute drive from the scene, said they felt their homes shake and some people captured the loud boom of the explosion on their home cameras.
The blast rattled Gentry Stover from his sleep.
"I thought the house had collapsed with me inside of it," he said by phone. "I live very close to Accurate and I realized about 30 seconds after I woke up that it had to have been that."
State Rep. Jody Barrett, a Republican from the neighboring town of Dickson, was worried about the possible economic impact because the plant is a key employer in the area.
"We live probably 15 miles as the crow flies and we absolutely heard it at the house," Barrett said. "It sounded like something going through the roof of our house."
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO
personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who
make comments. Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language. Don't threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated. Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything. Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Anyone violating these rules will be issued a
warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be
revoked.
Please purchase a Premium Subscription to continue reading.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.
We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.
A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means you’re helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.