LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The family of a worker killed last week in an explosion at a Louisville manufacturing plant said Monday they begged authorities to search the wreckage for his remains after they were told all employees were accounted for.
Kevens Dawson Jr.’s body was found inside the Givaudan Color Sense plant after rescuers returned to the building late in the night at the family’s urging, Dawson’s girlfriend, Malaika Watson, told reporters Monday.
The Nov. 12 afternoon explosion at the factory that makes colorings for the food industry rocked the surrounding neighborhood, left two workers dead and injured 11. Dozens of homes around the plant in eastern Louisville had their windows shattered and the percussion from the blast knocked pictures off walls and cracked drywall in some homes. Investigators said Monday they believe a cooking vessel in the plant overheated, causing the blast.
Lawyers retained by Dawson’s family pledged to find the cause of the blast and why Dawson was unaccounted for for several hours.
“We’re going to get to the bottom of everything that happened here, so none of the family has to go through what Kevens Dawson’s family is going through today,” Ben Crump, a high-profile civil rights attorney, said at an afternoon news conference Monday.
Dawson’s family said he worked at the plant for just over a year and would have turned 50 years old this week. He had three adult children.
Watson became emotional as she recounted how she was told to go to three different hospitals to see if Dawson had been admitted. She was told there were two workers in critical condition, but neither was Dawson. She returned to the site of the plant at around 7 p.m., but was turned away by officers at the scene.
“I just wanted to go in,” she said.
Watson ran through a gap in the fence and nearly made it to the wreckage of the plant before she was pulled away. She remained at the scene for hours afterward.
“Not until 11:30 (p.m.) did they say, ‘Oh, we found someone else,’” Watson said. “But it was too late.”
Watson said her boyfriend, who served in the Army, was the “strongest man I’ve ever met.”
“He’s not just a man. He’s a man’s man, and all he wanted to do was work and provide for his family,” Watson said, fighting through tears.
Louisville officials said they were initially told by the company that all employees were accounted for, though that information was wrong, so firefighters went back into the dangerous scene. When Dawson was found, he was pronounced dead at the scene, fire officials said last week.
Crump and a team of attorneys said Monday they have not filed a lawsuit, but are doing an investigation of the blast. An explosion at the same plant in 2003 killed one worker.
The president of the plant told reporters last week the company is accountable for the accident and will pay damages to residents affected by the blast.
A special response team from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives conducted a multi-day investigation and said Monday that preliminary findings indicate it was a cooking vessel that overheated. They said there were no hazardous materials involved in the explosion and it was not caused by any “nefarious act by any individual on site the day of the explosion.”
Later in the evening, leadership from Givaudan hosted a community meeting, where tensions rose as residents complained that the company has not been responsive to their needs in the aftermath of the explosion.
Company president Ann Leonard told residents it’s likely the plant will move out of the neighborhood, which was met with cheers. But many remained irritated that company officials have not sent representatives door-to-door to check on residents.
Some are still unable to move back into their homes nearly a week later.
The electricity in Eunice Stone’s home has remained cut off since the explosion, and she and her husband have moved into an extended stay hotel. The couple lived just a few yards away from the plant’s property, and the explosion has continued to give her headaches days later, she said.
“That blast was so horrible,” she said after the meeting Monday night. “My head is still throbbing.”