Survivors blasted a Tennessee plastics company for keeping workers on the job on Friday even as nearby flood waters rose, causing 11 people to be swept away when the plant was finally evacuated.
At least three people were killed and three remain missing, one of the survivors told local TV station WJHL 11. The others clung to floating plastic pipes and were dumped half a mile away on a pile of debris, another survivor, Jacob Ingram, told the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Managers at Impact Plastics in Erwin, Tenn., let employees move their cars as Hurricane Helene sent water from the nearby Nolichucky River surging into the company’s parking lot, but nobody was allowed to leave until the power had gone out and the water was nearly waist high, Ingram said.
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The local district attorney has instructed the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to determine whether the company should have sent everyone home sooner, WJHL reports.
In a statement, the company denied threatening to fire anyone for leaving, but confirmed that employees were only dismissed when water began to cover the parking lot and the factory lost power. The TBI investigation will look into whether the company gave people the impression they had to stay, or forbade them from leaving until it was too late.
By the time they were told to leave, only vehicles with four-wheel drive could escape, Ingram said. He was one of 11 people fighting their way on foot through the parking lot’s rushing current when a truck driver from the company next door offered them refuge in his pickup truck.
Everyone climbed aboard. By then, the water was tossing vehicles around like they were toys, Ingram’s videos of the flood show. A piece of debris hit the truck, sending one of the women falling into the water. Then another piece hit, and another woman fell. When a third, larger piece struck, the truck flipped entirely, sending everyone overboard.
About an hour later, a Tennessee National Guard helicopter pulled Ingram and four other survivors from the debris pile. Their friends and colleagues remained missing.
One of the victims, Bertha Mendoza, 56, fell off the truck and was separated from her sister while they tried to stay afloat; her body was recovered two days later, according to a GoFundMe asking for help with the funeral expenses.
Others—like Rosa Maria Andrade Reynoso, Lidia Verdugo Gastelum and Monica Hernandez Coron—haven’t been found. Anxious family members, including Reynoso’s husband, have been holding up their photos at press conferences.
“We are devastated by the tragic loss of great employees,” Impact Plastics’ founder Gerald O’Connor said in a statement. “Those who are missing or deceased, and their families are in our thoughts and prayers.”
But survivors said the company hadn’t reached out to them.
And considering the storm and the flood warnings, “We shouldn’t have been there that day at all,” the victims’ colleague told the Washington Post.
