11 workers at a Tennessee factory were swept away in Hurricane Helene flooding. Only 5 were rescued

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Louise Thomas

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As the rain from Hurricane Helene came down harder and harder, workers inside a plastics factory in rural Tennessee kept working. It wasn’t until water flooded into the parking lot and the power went out that the plant shut down and sent workers home.

Several never made it.

The raging floodwaters swept 11 people away, and only five were rescued. Two of them are confirmed dead and part of the death toll across the affected states that passed 150 Tuesday.

Four others are still unaccounted for since they were washed away Friday in the small town of Erwin, Tennessee, where dozens of people were rescued off the roof of a hospital.

Some workers managed to drive away from the plant, while others got caught on a clogged road where water rose enough to sweep vehicles away. Videos show the brown floodwaters from the adjacent Nolichucky River covering the nearby highway and lapping at the doors of Impact Plastics.

Jacob Ingram, a mold changer at the plastics factory, filmed himself and four others waiting for rescue as bobbing vehicles floated by. He later posted the videos on Facebook with the caption, “Just wanna say im lucky to be alive.” Videos of the helicopter rescue were posted on social media later on Saturday.

In one video, Ingram can be seen looking down at the camera, a green Tennessee National Guard helicopter hovering above him, hoisting one of the other survivors. In another, a soldier can be seen rigging the next evacuee in a harness.

Impact Plastics said in a statement Monday it “continued to monitor weather conditions" on Friday and that managers dismissed employees “when water began to cover the parking lot and the adjacent service road, and the plant lost power."

In interviews with local news outlets, two of the workers who made it out of the facility disputed those claims. One told News 5 WCYB that employees were made to wait until it was “too late.” Another, Ingram, made a similar statement to the Knoxville News Sentinel.

“They should’ve evacuated when we got the flash flood warnings, and when they saw the parking lot,” Ingram said. “We asked them if we should evacuate, and they told us not yet, it wasn’t bad enough.”

Worker Robert Jarvis told News 5 WCYB that the company should have let them leave earlier.

Jarvis said he tried to drive away in his car, but the water on the main road got too high, and only off-road vehicles were finding ways out of the flood zone.

“The water was coming up,” he said. “A guy in a 4x4 came, picked a bunch of us up and saved our lives, or we’d have been dead, too.”

The 11 workers found temporary respite on the back of a truck driven by a passerby, but it soon tipped over after debris hit it, Ingram said.

Ingram said he survived by grabbing onto plastic pipes that were on the truck. He said he and four others floated for about half a mile (about 800 meters) before they found safety on a sturdy pile of debris.

Impact Plastic said Tuesday it didn’t have any updates.

“We are devastated by the tragic loss of great employees,” company founder Gerald O’Connor said in the statement Monday. “Those who are missing or deceased, and their families are in our thoughts and prayers.”

Hurricane Helene’s death toll increased Tuesday as searches in multiple states continued. Survivors were looking for shelter and struggling to find running water, electricity and food. Others in the region are bracing for barriers to voting.

The two confirmed dead at the Tennessee plastics factory are Mexican citizens, said Lisa Sherman-Nikolaus, executive director at Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. She said many of the victims’ families have started online fundraisers to cover funeral costs and other expenses.

Bertha Mendoza was with her sister when the flooding started, but they got separated, according to a eulogy on her GoFundMe page authored by her daughter-in-law, who declined an interview request.

“She was loved dearly by her family, community, her church family, and co-workers,” the eulogy read.

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AP journalists Rhonda Shafner and Beatrice Dupuy contributed from New York.