Fifty years ago today, a blast at the Thiokol Factory in Camden County would change lives there forever.
Twenty-nine people died, and at least 50 people were injured in the blast when a section of the south Georgia munitions factory exploded, causing a chain reaction.
Jannie Everette was in high school when the explosion happened and remains on a mission to ensure the victims and their families are never forgotten. She says one way to do that is to keep telling the story of what happened on February 3, 1971.
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WOODBINE, Ga. The plant closed years ago. But the land is still there at the end of Harrietts Bluff Road, a two-lane county highway that winds east from Interstate-95 before hitting a chain-link fence, padlocked, with stop signs.
It has been 50 years since that Wednesday morning in 1971 and some of the people who survived, who are still alive today, still can’t talk about it.
Some never could bring themselves to go back to the site of the Thiokol plant. Others did go back, but swore they’d never return.
One of the men who was there that morning eventually returned, only to hear something in the quiet stillness. Or maybe it was just something in his head. Either way, it haunted him.