Savannah, Ga., Feb. 21 - About 120 employees have returned to work at the Imperial Sugar refinery where a deadly dust explosion and fire erupted two weeks ago, the company's chief executive said Thursday.
That's about a third of the 370 people Imperial Sugar (IPSU) employed at its Port Wentworth refinery before the Feb. 7 explosion.
John Sheptor, the company's president and CEO, said the number of workers back on the job should increase slowly as Imperial Sugar rebuilds damaged portions of the refinery.
"I'm working hard to continue to bring people back," Sheptor said in a phone interview between visiting families of 16 badly burned workers hospitalized in Augusta and meeting in Atlanta with Gov. Sonny Perdue. "I look forward to the day when I have all our people back."
The explosion, which killed nine people and injured dozens more, destroyed the packaging area where workers poured sugar into bags sold under the Dixie Crystals brand. The refinery itself, used to turn raw sugar into consumer-ready crystals, sustained less damage but remains shut down. Sheptor said the company hopes to finish any repairs and new construction needed by the end of 2008.
Sheptor said many of the returning workers were needed to help ship about 120 truckloads of bagged sugar that escaped damage from the explosion and fire.
Some employees are assessing repairs and maintenance needed to get the 90-year-old refinery running again. Others are hunting down documents and other information requested by federal investigators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.
The 250 refinery employees who haven't been called back to work are still receiving regular paychecks, Sheptor said, though not the overtime pay many had used to boost their wages.
Sheptor said about half of the roughly 120 contract workers who also worked at the refinery had been laid off. He said Texas-based Imperial Sugar was trying to help the rest by offering to pay the first month's wages of any contractor hired by another company.
Meanwhile, Sheptor traveled Thursday to the state Capitol in Atlanta to ask the governor to consider sending financial aid to local governments to pay for the massive emergency response and to Port Wentworth businesses such as grocery stores and laundry services that rely on the paychecks of refinery workers.
"While we are down here rebuilding the facility and preparing to start again, these businesses are going to suffer," Sheptor said.