A group of migrant workers have been accused of looting properties in a flooded part of Tennessee after storm Helene tore through the southern state.
Deputies with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office arrested all eight men on Saturday, according to Sheriff Keith Sexton.
Police say the men looted structures in one of the county’s flood zones.
Jesus Leodan Garcia-Peneda, 51, Josue Berardo Ortis-Valdez, 30, and Ersy Leonel Ortis-Valdez, 33, were all charged with burglary.
The other five – Albin Nahun Vega-Rapalo, 24, David Bairon Rapalo-Rapalo, 37, Kevin Noe Martinez-Lopez, 25, Marvin Hernandez-Martinez, 43, and Dayln Gabriel Guillen Guillen, 37 – were charged with aggravated burglary because they allegedly broke into occupied structures.
Jesus Leodan Garcia-Peneda, left, and Josue Berardo Ortiz-Valdez, right
Ersy Leonel Ortiz-Valdez, left, and Albin Nahun Vega-Rapalo, right
David Bairon Rapalo-Rapalo, left, and Kevin Noe Martinez-Lopez, right
Marvin Hernandez-Martinez, left, and Dayln Gabriel Gullien Gullien, right
All eight men are migrant workers who are in the US legally with work visas, the sheriff’s office confirmed to the New York Post on Monday.
The men were each being held in jail on $20,000 bonds and were scheduled to appear in court on Monday.
As of now, it’s unknown if the lootings happened in homes or businesses.
Tennessee was among a number of hard hit states by Helene, which dumped trillions of gallons of water on the South and the Midwest.
One of the most dramatic scenes played out at the Unicoi County Hospital, where the overflowing Nolichucky River forced more than fifty patients and care workers to seek refuge on the roof.
Eventually everyone was rescued, with a helicopter landing on the roof and boats arriving to ferry some patients away.
Pictured: The Nolichucky Dam in Eastern Tennessee. The dam was bursting with 30,000 cubic feet of water per second on September 27. Based on that figure, an Olympic swimming pool’s worth of water was gushing through the tiny dam every three seconds
People are seen on the roof of Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tennessee
A man in Tennessee posted a terrifying first hand view of what it was like on the ground when the Nolichucky River burst past the dam
A man in Tennessee posted a terrifying first hand view of what it was like on the ground when the Nolichucky River burst past the dam.
Jeffrey Fuller live-streamed the hurricane tearing through his property on Facebook.
The video showed waist-high waters barreling through the home, with Fuller shouting over the rushing current that the storm ‘came in quick… we’re going into the attic.’
Helene, which made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in Florida’s Big Bend Region, might have dissipated, but the devastation it has caused will be long lasting.
So far, 128 people have died across six states, CNN reported.
Power outages are the most widespread in the Carolinas and Georgia, where nearly 1.5 million people are still without electricity.