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Flooding from Hurricane Helene swept away 11 factory employees as they left work. Only 5 have been found.
As the rain from Hurricane Helene came down harder and harder, employees 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 160 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 4×4 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 before they found safety on a sturdy pile of debris.
Impact Plastic said Tuesday it didn’t have any updates.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation told CBS News it was “investigating allegations involving Impact Plastics” on Wednesday, at the request of 1st Judicial District Attorney Steve Finney.
“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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Harris says she won’t ban fracking
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Vice President Kamala Harris said she won’t ban fracking natural gas, telling KDKA-TV that her position hasn’t changed since she joined the Biden ticket in 2020.
As a senator back in 2019, Harris once said she would ban fracking, which is the method used to extract the natural gas the Pittsburgh region uses to heat homes and factories.
The Trump campaign insists that is still Harris’ view, so in her first television interview with a Pittsburgh station since announcing her candidacy for president, KDKA-TV’s Jon Delano repeated one campaign ad and asked her directly.
“The ad claims that if you are elected president you will ban fracking and cost Pennsylvania over 300,000 jobs. Have you changed your view on fracking, and if so, why?” Delano asked.
“So let me start by saying that that ad as you described it is absolutely a mischaracterization which I think is intended to make people afraid,” Harris replied.
Harris said her view today is the same as in 2020 when she joined the Biden ticket. Biden said repeatedly in that campaign that he would not ban fracking, a position repeated by Harris.
“I will not ban fracking. I did not as vice president. In fact, I cast the tie-breaking vote to open up more fracking leases,” Harris said. “And my perspective on this is grounded in a number of things, including that we don’t have to ban fracking to do the work that we can do to also invest in a clean energy economy.”
And the vice president took direct aim at campaign ads claiming otherwise, calling them intentionally misleading.
“I’m going to bring jobs back to rural communities. I’m going to make sure that we invest in those communities that have done the kind of work that you have in mind when you talk about Pittsburgh, when you talk about the greater aspect of Pennsylvania. And I’m going to keep doing that work,” she said.
And while she obviously had a different view five years ago, the vice president is adamant she will not ban fracking.
“That’s where I stand, period. As president of the United States, I will not ban fracking,” she said.
Despite her strong and clear words on the issue, it’s not likely to stop the Trump campaign from insisting her earlier views on fracking are her real ones, leaving it up to voters to decide who’s telling the truth.