September can you kill, in the south. Having survived the languid, sticky slowness of August, you think September will be different. It is, after all, a month of change, when children return to school. The streets go quiet during the day, the parks and malls are bare in the mornings and stillness settles over the city, a held breath that finally begins to exhale around 2:30. With these shifts and changes, you’d think the weather would also change, that heat leave like an a guest who has over stayed.. You’d think.

But you’d be wrong.

You slowly realize that the heat and humidity has spent the summer making itself comfortable and it has no intention of leaving just yet. It stays on the porch, gently rocking in its chair and staring off into the sky. Occasionally, it will reach down and bring a wet glass to its lips and take a long drink and you’ll feel pieces of yourself melt away and it’ll turn and smile at you, the son of a bitch, and continue rocking. It paid for the full month and it intends to enjoy every moment of it and if you should go mad from the heat and humidity that doesn’t let up and seems like it never will, if you’re wake up everyday on the thin edge of reason praying please, let the heat break today, well, that’s just too bad, but it pay for the entire month, so it’ll be stayin’.

There was an explosion at the Imperial Sugar Refinery in Port Wentworth, around 7:30 this evening., Details are sketchy right now, as it emergency crews try to deal with the aftermath and the fire under control. WTOC has the best info so far and I’m watching this thread over at Savannah Underground and this thread over at The Savannah Star Chamber message board.

9:30pm: Googlemaps shot of the area, taken before the explosion of course.

10:00pm: Police are requesting that families only send a single representative to the scene, in order to keep crowds under control. Families are being ushered to Our Lady of Lords Church.

The Savannah River has been closed from North of the Talmadge bride to the Houlihan bridge.

According to a short interview with a doctor at Memorial Hospital, over 30 injured have arrived there, all of them critical.

10:22pm: CNN story

10:25pm: Images showing up on The Star Chamber message board


10:40 pm: Savannah River is back open


Friday 8am: Doesn’t seem to be as bad as originally thought. Still six people unaccounted for. About 20 people have been or are in the process of being transported to the Augusta Burn Center. Fires are still raging and part of the plant has been destroyed, leading to structural concerns.