extensive smoke damage. The packaging area was totally destroyed and in all, while twelve percent of the refinery was demolished by the explosion. Removal of debris began the day after the accident, with assistance from structural engineers. The six missing persons were all found dead that day, three of them in tunnels running beneath the facility. The final death toll was thirteen. It was the first major shutdown of a U.S. sugar refinery since American Sugar Refining Inc.'s Domino Sugar shut down its plant in Chalmette, Louisiana, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. By February 14, 2008, the worst of the fire had been extinguished. The sugar storage silos remained alight despite attempts to put the fire out by dousing them with thousands of gallons of water from a helicopter. Specialist crews and equipment were called in to complete work tackling the smoldering, molten sugar in the silos. At this time, seven bodies had been recovered, and an eighth person had died in the hospital. Investigation The location of the explosion was quickly established as a building used to store refined sugar prior to packaging it and two of three tall, thick reinforced concrete storage silos adjacent to it, as pictured. According to Imperial Sugar CEO John Sheptor, the accumulated sugar dust likely acted like gunpowder. Sheptor, who was in the plant at the time of the explosion, survived only because he was protected by a firewall. Heavy equipment had to be used to shore up the partially collapsed structure before firefighters could enter it to search for victims. Within twenty-four hours, the explosive substance was identified as sugar dust. Federal investigations by OSHA and the CSB were launched, and they interviewed witnesses, checked documentation, and conducted on-scene examination of the plant. OSHA arrived within two hours and the CSB within forty-eight hours. Other brief investigations were conducted by state firefighters and police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), but these were ended quickly after confirming there was no evidence of the explosion and fire having been deliberately started. In a press conference held on February 17, 2008, one of the six members of the CSB team said that the explosion showed the ongoing risk from dust explosions despite their report highlighting the matter in 2004. Investigators were unable to enter the silos as OSHA ruled them to be too hazardous after the explosion. They were