Multiple employees inside a Tennessee plastic factory have died after being told by their bosses not to evacuate during Hurricane Helene, according to a worker.
Impact Plastics in Erwin, Tennessee, confirmed that there had been fatalities at their plant after Friday’s extreme weather – but haven’t revealed how many people had been killed.
Two people are said to have died, with up to five still missing.
Employee Bertha Mendoza, 56, has since been confirmed as one of those who had died in the floods, according to a fundraising page. Alexa Peterson told NBC News that her father Johnny was among those who had died. She told the outlet she was seeking legal representation.
Jacob Ingram, a mold changer at the company, told the Knoxville News Sentinel that as the flooding began, mangers told employees to move their cars but wouldn’t let them leave.
Ingram said: ‘They should’ve evacuated when we got the flash flood warnings, and when they saw the parking lot. When we moved our cars, we should’ve evacuated then.’
It emerges as the death toll from the brutal Hurricane which swept the southeast last week passed 150 people.
He continued: ‘We asked them if we should evacuate, and they told us not yet, it wasn’t bad enough. And by the time it was bad enough, it was too late – unless you had a four-wheel drive.’
The outlet reported that a group of employees had clung to spools of flexible pipes on the back of a semitruck waiting for help.
The truck tipped over and at least seven people were then swept away by the floodwaters.
Founder and CEO Gerald O’Connor said: ‘We are devastated by the tragic loss of great employees.
‘Those who are missing or deceased, and their families are in our thoughts and prayers.’
The company also claimed that at no point were employees told they would be fired if they left the premises.
Fernando Ruiz has been left searching for his mother Lidia Verdugo after he spoke with her while she was working as the rain fell.
According to Ruiz, he told her to leave but she replied that the managers at the plant weren’t telling them as the water levels continued to climb.
Guadalupe Hernández told WSMV her sister Monica Hernández had gone to work on Friday and received a call from her in which she said goodbye, in case she wasn’t saved.
She hasn’t been heard from since.
Francisco Javier Guerrero’s wife Rosa Maria Andrade Reynoso had also gone missing in the waters.
He told WBIR: ‘She said goodbye to me, and to take care of the kids. We feel destroyed because of what’s happening, specifically because we don’t have answers if she is one of the people that were located.’
The Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) said in a statement that they had seen people struggling to get help from the authorities.
They said: ‘TIRRC staff members who deployed to the area witnessed community members struggling to access interpretation services from local and state government agencies, as well as requests by agencies for identification and documentation from immigrant community families that hindered their ability to identify missing loved ones.’
Footage shared by Ingram on his social media shows dark brown muddy water running through the company’s parking lot.
Large pickup trucks can be seen bobbing up and down inside the fast flowing floodwaters.
Among the worst-affected areas is the North Carolina city of Asheville, which sits in a valley and which has so-far seen around 50 people confirmed as dead.
President Joe Biden was set to survey the devastation in the region Wednesday.
Rescuers are still continuing their efforts to make contact with hundreds of people who are cut off by washed-out roads and downed communication lines.
Images of the destruction caused by the hurricane reveal a wasteland of splintered houses, crushed cargo containers, mud-covered highways, and collapsed communication lines.
Damage estimates ranged from $15billion to more than $100billion, insurers and forecasters said over the weekend, as water systems, communications and critical transportation routes were affected.
Property damage and lost economic output will become clearer as officials assess the destruction.
At a news conference on Tuesday, North Carolina governor Roy Cooper said: ‘Communities were wiped off the map’.