A group of workers at a plastic factory in rural Tennessee were swept away after their employers allegedly denied them to go home in time to save them as Hurricane Helene hit the region.
The raging floodwaters swept away eleven Impact Plastics workers in Erwin, Tennessee, last Friday (September 27). Only five were rescued.
Two of the employees have been confirmed dead, while the remaining four are still unaccounted for.
Jacob Ingram, one of the workers who survived, shared videos showing the brown floodwaters from the adjacent Nolichucky River covering one of the roads near the facility as a group of workers tried to drive away.
A group of factory workers was swept away when Hurricane Helene hit Erwin, Tennessee, last Friday (September 27)
Image credits: Rob Ciarapica
“I was working at impact when the storm hit yesterday and me and 11 others got trapped on the back of a semi just wanna say i’m lucky to be alive and i hope all the others i was with are okay,” Ingram wrote on Facebook.
Ingram and his group stayed on the back of a truck driven by a passerby. However, the vehicle tipped over after debris hit it.
The man, who has been working as a mold changer at the factory for eight months, survived by grabbing onto plastic pipes that were on the truck.
He and four others were swept away for half a mile (800 meters) before they could climb a sturdy pile of debris.
Two of the workers have been confirmed dead, while four others remain missing
The group was rescued by a Tennessee National Guard helicopter after an hour.
One of the clips posted on Saturday shows the helicopter flying above Ingram, while a separate video captures a rescuer putting a harness on one of the workers.
Impact Plastics stated that the company “continued to monitor the weather conditions” on Friday (September 27).
The company claims that managers let employees go home “when water began to cover the parking lot and the adjacent service road, and the plant lost power.”
“We asked them if we should evacuate, and they told us not yet, it wasn’t bad enough,” said Jacob Ingram, one of the workers who survived
Ingram said that Impact Plastics didn’t take the necessary precautions to ensure the safety of their workers and did not evacuate them in time.
“They should’ve evacuated when we got the flash flood warnings, and when they saw the parking lot,” he told Knoxville News Sentinel.
“We asked them if we should evacuate, and they told us not yet, it wasn’t bad enough.”
Another worker at the plant, Robert Jarvis, told News 5 WCYB that by the time they evacuated, it was “too late.”
Jarvis tried to escape the storm in his car, but said the water on the main road was too high. This is when he and the group received the help of a stranger who came from a different road.
“The water was coming up. A guy in a 4×4 came, picked a bunch of us up and saved our lives, or we’d have been dead, too.”
In a statement shared Tuesday (October 1), Impact Plastics founder Gerald O’Connor wrote, “We are devastated by the tragic loss of great employees.
“Those who are missing or deceased, and their families are in our thoughts and prayers.”
“At no time were employees told that they would be fired if they left the facility,” the release states. “For employees who were non-English speaking, bi-lingual employees were among the group of managers who delivered the message.”
The manufacturer stated that most employees left immediately, but some remained at the facility or nearby for unknown reasons, as per News 19.
One of the employees who died was 56-year-old Bertha Mendoza, who fell off the truck after it hit the debris and was swept away by the flood, according to Ingram and a representative from the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.
Mendoza’s body was found two days after the flooding, on Sunday (September 29).
She was reportedly separated from her sister as the two tried to fight for their lives and stay afloat.
Image credits: Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty
Image credits: Sean Rayford/Getty
Her family started a GoFundMe page titled “In memory of Bertha Mendoza” to help them after their loss.
“Bertha Mendoza, 56 years of age, was a loving wife, mother, sister, daughter and grandmother. She was loved dearly by her family, community, her church family, and co-workers,” the page description reads.
“She was caught in the devastation from the over flow in Nolichucky and separated from her sister while trying to stay afloat on the rushing current.
“The family asks for prayers and any support you can contribute to her widowed husband for her funeral expenses. We stand with all those families impacted and we could never have imagined this type of loss affecting our loving Bertha. Thank you all.”
Another employee, Rosa Maria Andrade Reynoso, is still missing, Knoxville News Sentinel reported. Her husband, Francesco Guerro, said that one of the last messages he received from Reynoso was that the water had gotten so high she didn’t know whether she would be able to get out, and she told him to take care of their children.
Bored Panda has contacted Impact Plastics for comment.
At least 162 deaths in six Southeastern states have been attributed to Hurricane Helene.
People sent their prayers to those affected by the hurricane, which has caused over 100 deaths in the United States
