“Trapped by Their Employer: The Harrowing Tale of 11 Tennessee Workers Caught in Hurricane Helene’s Deadly Flood”
Image credits: ABC News
Ingram said that Impact Plastics didnât take the necessary precautions to ensure the safety of their workers and did not evacuate them in time.
âThey shouldâve evacuated when we got the flash flood warnings, and when they saw the parking lot,â he told Knoxville News Sentinel.
âWe asked them if we should evacuate, and they told us not yet, it wasnât bad enough.â
Another worker at the plant, Robert Jarvis, told News 5 WCYB that by the time they evacuated, it was âtoo late.â
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.
âThe water was coming up. A guy in a 4Ã4 came, picked a bunch of us up and saved our lives, or weâd have been dead, too.â
Image credits: ABC News
In a statement shared Tuesday (October 1), Impact Plastics founder Gerald OâConnor wrote, âWe are devastated by the tragic loss of great employees.
âThose who are missing or deceased, and their families are in our thoughts and prayers.â
âAt no time were employees told that they would be fired if they left the facility,â the release states. âFor employees who were non-English speaking, bi-lingual employees were among the group of managers who delivered the message.â
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.
