Factory workers say company told them not to evacuate from Hurricane Helene. 11 were swept away in floodwaters

An employee at the Tennessee factory where 11 workers were swept away in Hurricane Helene floodwaters, and at least two died, has told The Independent that the company failed to evacuate staff in time despite the dangers, and put “profits over our lives”.

Impact Plastics in Erwin in being investigated by the state over the fatal incident after the factory was surrounded by water when Helene dumped more than 10 inches of rain on the region.

For Robert Jarvis, 47, last Friday started like any average day at work. He arrived at about 6:20 a.m. from his home in Johnson City, chatted with coworkers, and went about his day.

As Helene moved over the area, employees received phone notifications from Tennessee’s Emergency Management Agency instructing them to evacuate at around 10 a.m.

At around 10:40 a.m., the Impact Plastics building lost power, and Jarvis got a text from a coworker to tell him that the factory’s parking lot was flooded.

Jarvis said his co-worker told him to move his car to higher ground and on his way to do so, he ran into a member of senior management.

“I said… can we leave?’ She said, ‘No. Not till I talk to [another member of management] first,’” Jarvis told The Independent.

Ten minutes later, management told staff to leave work but by then, the water level was so high, there was nowhere to go.

“It was too late. We couldn’t get out,” Jarvis said. A video he shared showed the parking lot filling with water.

As Jarvis tried to get his GMC truck out of the parking lot, he saw a car floating in the middle of the road. He said he began to panic but a worker from a neigboring business, who was riding a tractor, offered to help. Jarvis followed him to the end of a nearby dirt road and then turned onto a walking trail. The man cut a fence for cars to be able to escape.

“But, by the time I got there the water was rushing so hard, it took my car,” Jarvis said.

Another man came to his rescue in a Dodge pickup truck, and Jarvis was able to escape his vehicle, which was filling with water. “They saved my life,” he said.

Others were not so fortunate. Some 11 workers from Impact Plastics were swept away in floodwaters after the nearby Nolichucky River burst its banks. Two deaths have been confirmed, Bertha Mendoza and Monica Hernandez.

“Those people lost their lives for no reason,” Jarvis said. “They put profit over our lives. That angers me.”

Jacob Ingram said he was one of the 11 who were swept away and became trapped on the back of a semitruck. He was there for two or three hours as the truck was battered by the water, knocking Mendoza and Hernandez off. Ingram said the truck was hit by debris, and flipped over, and he only managed to stay on by wedging his hands into a plastic band.

“I wedged my hands into it, and it took everything I had to hang on,” he said. “I seen them (the pipes) floating down river, so that’s what gave us the idea. We knew it was floating.”

An hour after floating down the river, a rescue helicopter from the Tennessee National Guard came to save Ingram.

At least three factory workers are still missing, according to Knox News.

The Independent has contacted Impact Plastics for comment on the employee’s allegations.

Jarvis remembered one colleague who is missing, Rosa Maria Andrade Reynoso, smiling at him before the flooding began. “Every time I close my eyes, I see that now,” he said.

Other workers have also accused company management of not allowing them to leave.

“We were all talking to the supervisors and telling everybody, ‘Look, we don’t need to be here,’” Zinnia Adkins told WJHL.

“Our phone alerts were saying we need to flee the areas. And they never said anything about it. And supervisors didn’t tell us that we could go.”

Ingram told Knox News on Tuesday that employees should have been evacuated sooner. “They should’ve evacuated when we got the flash flood warnings, and when they saw the parking lot,” he said.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigations told The Independent on Wednesday that its agents were “investigating allegations involving Impact Plastics” following a request from the area’s lead prosecutor, First Judicial District Attorney General Steven Finney.

Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which has also opened a probe, said that companies have eight hours to report a workplace death but had received no fatality reports from Impact Plastics by Wednesday evening.

Impact Plastics released a statement on Monday expressing sympathy for employees who had lost their lives.

“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.”

The company said it had dismissed employees “in time for them to escape the industrial park” when water began to cover the parking lot and the plant lost power.

“At no time were employees told that they would be fired if they left the facility. For employees who were non-English speaking, bilingual employees were among the group of managers who delivered the message,” the company said. “While most employees left immediately, some remained on or near the premises for unknown reasons.”

Impact Plastics said senior management and assistants were the last to exit the building.The Independent has been unable to confirm this.

A spokesperson also told The Associated Press that Impact Plastics is conducting its own internal review of the incident.

Helene is now the deadliest hurricane in US history after 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. The death toll reached 200 on Thursday and hundreds more remain missing. The damages from the climate-amped storm are expected to run to $250bn.

With reporting from The Associated Press