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KRIS HUNDLEYFor Bruce Murrell it was a day like any other at West Pharmaceutical Services' North Carolina plant, then "Bam!" An explosion rocked the plant, killing six workers and injuring 30 others. As the company rebuilds, Murrell and co-workers have a long commute - to the company's St. Petersburg plant, where they spend almost three weeks at a time.
Bruce Murrell was listening to the radio as he worked Jan. 29 at West Pharmaceutical Services' plant in his hometown of Kinston, N.C.
Gray chunks of freshly mixed rubber, dropping down a chute from a mixer upstairs, were flattened between giant rollers and funneled by Murrell into giant extruders. After 25 years with West, a maker of rubber stoppers, plungers and caps used by the pharmaceutical industry, Murrell was just doing his job.
Then the plant exploded.
"I heard a great big "Bam!' and thought it was a bomb," Murrell said of the explosion that tore through the plant at 1:27 p.m. "Everything went dark. The smoke was so thick you couldn't breathe. I could hear people hollering but I couldn't see nobody. I just knew I had to get myself out of there. I saw death coming quick."
Six of Murrell's co-workers died and 30 were injured in the explosion, which demolished the factory where 255 people once worked. Murrell found his way out of the plant, "walking by faith," then ducked in two more times to help co-workers out. He suffered cuts on his arms and back but was home from the hospital by 4 p.m. that afternoon, greeting a houseful of relatives, fellow church members and his pastor, all weeping with relief.
By the time Murrell was home hugging his wife and teenage son Demeco, executives at West Pharmaceutical knew what they had to do to keep producing tiny but critical parts that fit into everything from insulin bottles to intravenous tubing:
Kinston's rubber production would be shifted to West's plant in St. Petersburg, as would some of its molding business. Production of other items would be moved to West's plant in Kearney, Neb. Any of West's Kinston employees who wanted to move with the work would be temporarily uprooted from their close-knit town.
That's why Murrell found himself boarding a bus to Nebraska about a month after the accident, the day after a memorial service was held for his dead co-workers.
"A man asked me if I'd do the prayer before we got on the bus and I did," Murrell remembers of the cold day in late February when he left his wife and 15-year-old son for the first time. "Then I said, "It's time to go to work now.' "
After a one-month stint in Nebraska, Murrell became one of 76 workers from the obliterated Kinston plant temporarily transplanted to St. Petersburg. Flying in from Raleigh, they work nearly three weeks at a stretch before getting a week's break to return home.
"They do things a little different in St. Pete," Murrell said, explaining that the rubber compounding work in the Florida plant uses smaller, older machines than the Kinston plant did. "But it didn't take long for us to fit right in. We feel like family now."
The company pays air fare, housing and a daily food allowance for its temporary workers, who stay in 43 one- and two-bedroom apartments off Gandy Boulevard in St. Petersburg. Workers have access to 27 leased vehicles with free gas during their stay.
Murrell was one of about 130 Kinston employees who volunteered for temporary relocation to West's plants in Nebraska and St. Petersburg. The remaining Kinston workers, out of work but unable to travel because of family responsibilities or injuries, were eligible for unemployment.
With the transplanted workers and new hires, West's work force in St. Petersburg has increased to about 400, up from 282 before the explosion. (West also has a plant in Clearwater, which makes aluminum seals and employs 130 people, but it did not add temporary workers.)
West's emergency worker relocation program isn't cheap.
In addition to housing, food and transportation, the company pays overtime for workers whose hourly pay ranges from $8.25 to $17 an hour, depending on job position, skill level and seniority. When Kinston employees come to St. Petersburg, they work 19 days straight, with time-and-a-half pay on Saturdays and double time on Sundays. On the 20th day, they are flown back to Kinston for a one-week rest, then the cycle starts again. In preparation for a week's vacation at Thanksgiving, and the closing of the plant for the long weekend, some Kinston workers recently put in 30-day stretch with no days off before they headed home on Saturday.
Mike Anderson, a vice president at West's corporate headquarters in Lionville, Pa., said the business interruption since the explosion has cost $15-million to $20-million so far. "Not all of that is employee costs," he said. "But that's the largest component."
For the company, it's not just about helping loyal employees. The relocation effort allowed the 80-year-old company, which dominates the market for pharmaceutical components, to maintain its production levels and fill orders despite the loss of a major factory.
"We looked at just hiring new workers, but this work involves big equipment, with hot, moving parts," Anderson said. "It's not a place to wander around untrained. And if you had tried to burden a plant with a major training program just as you were burdening it with additional production, you would have been asking for trouble and injuries."
The success of the relocation program is reflected in the publicly traded company's most recent financial filing. West reported $120.1-million in sales for the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with $104.1-million a year ago. Net income was $4.1-million, or 28 cents a share, in the latest quarter, compared with $3.6-million, or 25 cents a share, in 2002.
"We've been able to keep everybody supplied and we didn't lose any customers," Anderson said. "We would not have been able to succeed without the volunteers."
At the St. Petersburg plant, the Kinston workers have helped more than double rubber production, to 372,000 pounds a month, up from 179,000 pounds a year ago. They help staff 44 molding presses, up from 31 before the Kinston explosion. And they made it possible for the plant to add a new line of seven machines that make tiny yet essential rubber needle covers at the rate of 4-million every 24 hours.
David Carruth, the soft-spoken manager of the St. Petersburg plant, said it's not too dramatic to say the Kinston volunteers saved the pharmaceutical industry from disaster. Although West's products are largely invisible to consumers, they are critical to West's customers, which include every major maker of drugs and medical devices.
"For instance, if we can't make the stoppers that go in insulin bottles, the drugmaker can't ship the drug and people have to go without insulin," said Carruth, who has managed the St. Petersburg plant for 23 years. "It's like the nickel washer that fails and the space shuttle blows up."
Carruth said he was amazed how quickly his company responded to the Kinston disaster, immediately ordering him to do whatever was necessary to ramp up rubber production and molding at his factory. Such speedy decisionmaking is unusual in the heavily regulated pharmaceutical industry. "We don't make changes quickly," he said.
Within days of the explosion, Carruth had an engineer on a plane to Taiwan to approve new molding machines, which were airfreighted to Florida and operational within six weeks. Approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a new rubbermaking line in St. Petersburg took weeks, not the usual six to 12 months, and machinery was quickly pulled together from all over the country.
Carruth's human resources director located apartments and rental vehicles for the arriving Kinston workers. As the plant, which had been running three shifts a day, five days a week, geared up to operate 24/7, local employees also put in plenty of overtime. A few worked 80 days straight after the explosion as the plant adjusted to the new workload.
But running at maximum capacity has its drawbacks. Machines break down, leaving workers idle while they wait for repairs. People also show signs of strain. Carruth said he recently had counselors come into the plant and offer their services to workers on the advice of an outside consultant.
"People get emotional over the holidays, so I thought it would be a good time to offer help," said Carruth, who has occasionally brought in dinner for late shifts. "We're really asking people to go above and beyond their duty here."
Workers Murrell and Tyra Anderson (no relation to West executive Mike Anderson) said the extended stretches away from home, and the unrelenting work while in Florida, have been stressful but manageable.
"I miss my nieces and nephews and in a small town like Kinston, everybody's family," said Anderson, 30 years old and single. "But they needed us, and we wanted to keep the company afloat. It was a good opportunity to keep our jobs and benefits and not have to go on unemployment."
Anderson, who works a molding machine and has been with West for more than nine years, said the company has treated them well in St. Petersburg. The only hitch has been that their company insurance is not accepted locally, so they have to pay for services at a local walk-in clinic, then get reimbursed.
"We're not going without," Anderson said, reaching over to hug plant manager Carruth. "But as much as I love you Dave, I'll be glad to get home."
Murrell, who helps make the rubber that Anderson molds, said he calls his wife and son several times a day to check in. He's missed his son's and wife's birthdays while in St. Petersburg, as well as the couple's anniversary and Valentine's Day. He will be home for Thanksgiving and for Christmas, when the plant is closing for 16 days.
When his son wasn't chosen for the high school basketball team recently, Murrell had to urge him to keep his chin up in a phone call, not in person. Murrell, a tall man with a gentle voice, said he worries about his wife, who suffers from debilitating migraines that require weekly visits to a doctor in Chapel Hill, about 100 miles from home.
"It haunts me to leave, but I got to pay the doctor bills," he said. "Some of the people here (from Kinston) get depressed and I tell them to hang in there. I just get in my room, read my Bible and call my family. I thank God I got a job."
Though Murrell and Anderson had visited Florida in the past on vacation, their seven-day-a-week work schedule leaves little time for leisure while they're in St. Petersburg. Occasionally, they say, Kinston workers pile in company-leased vans and head downtown or to the beach or a mall. Murrell found a church he likes near his apartment complex, though he still calls his pastor back home. Anderson said the thrill of living someplace new wore off long ago.
"Every city is pretty much the same once you've seen the sights," she said. "It's pretty much just basic living."
The Kinston workers are encouraged that construction is under way on a new plant in their hometown, which will begin operations in early 2004. Last week, the Kinston plant manager visited St. Petersburg and spoke with the workers who will join him at the new plant. All Kinston workers should be transferred back home by the end of June, Carruth said.
Though the Kinston workers will return to a brand new plant, there's no forgetting the explosion that created such a dramatic disruption in their lives. A government investigation found that the explosion was fueled by combustible dust from a powder used in West's rubbermaking process. No conclusion has yet been reached on what caused the dust, which had accumulated on top of the Kinston plant's suspended ceilings, to explode.
Last summer, the North Carolina Department of Labor fined West Pharmaceutical $100,000 and ordered the company to donate $300,000 to Kinston charitable organizations to settle violations uncovered by an investigation into the explosion. The company did not admit it violated any laws but agreed not to appeal the citation. At least one lawsuit is pending against the company. West officials said its investigation into the cause of the explosion is not yet complete.
Carruth said he's had thorough cleanings and risk assessments at the St. Petersburg plant since the Kinston disaster. He's having a new dust collection system installed by year-end.
Though a few of the Kinston workers who came to St. Petersburg couldn't handle the stress of re-entering a factory and quickly returned home, most of the transplants have stayed. Murrell said he doesn't worry about the safety of the St. Petersburg plant because the machines here crank out smaller batches of rubber than in Kinston and therefore use less of the plastic powder that creates combustible dust.
"The equipment here is not powerful like ours was, so it's a whole lot safer here," he said. "I try not to let fear conquer me."
But when a power transformer in front of the St. Petersburg plant blew out with a loud boom and the lights went out soon after the Kinston workers arrived, the newcomers were the first ones out the door.
"A lot of guys in St. Pete laughed at us," Murrell recalled. "But they hadn't been through what we've been through."
- Kris Hundley can be reached at hundley@sptimes.com or 727 892-2996.