Tennessee factory employees clung to semitruck before Helene floodwaters swept them away

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. − A group of employees from a plastics factory clung to spools of flexible yellow plastic pipes on the back of a flatbed semitruck for hours waiting for help as the Nolichucky River raged around them as Helene hit eastern Tennessee Friday.

But the truck tipped over and at least seven people were swept away by the floodwaters, the Knoxville News Sentinel, part of the USA TODAY Network, has learned. The incident happened in Erwin, Tennessee, just a mile from Unicoi County Hospital, where that same day, dozens of staff and patients were stranded on a hospital roof prompting harrowing rescues.

At least one of the factory workers died, a woman, according to an immigrant advocacy group working with families of some of the employees. The company, Impact Plastics, confirmed the death of one other person but did not provide details.

"We are devastated by the tragic loss of great employees,” founder and CEO Gerald O’Connor said in a statement released Monday, indicating the toll may be higher than what's been confirmed so far. “Those who are missing or deceased, and their families are in our thoughts and prayers.”

The fate of the others is unknown, obscured by a lack of clear communication from state and local leaders compounded by the confusion caused by widespread devastation that knocked out electricity and communications, making it difficult to track down people who are unaccounted for across the region.

The flooding in Erwin, especially near the Riverview Industrial Park where the Impact Plastics factory is located, was cataclysmic.

The industrial park is just a couple hundred feet from the Nolichucky River, which swelled with a rush of water comparable to nearly twice what cascades over Niagara Falls. Only a parking lot and two roads separate Impact Plastics from the river.

Just a mile south of Impact Plastics is Unicoi County Hospital, the site of a dramatic helicopter rescue that same day of 54 staff and patients stranded on the roof as the river brook loose from its banks.

Erwin is one of dozens of East Tennessee towns submerged following the flooding that devastated the region after Hurricane Helene made landfall and turned north, unleashing historic levels of rain. There have been five confirmed deaths – three in Unicoi County – across East Tennessee through Monday, but federal, state and local officials expect that number to rise.

Impact Plastics employee: We couldn’t leave

Jacob Ingram has worked at Impact Plastics for nearly eight months as a mold changer. It's a role, he said, that keeps him on his feet the entire first shift.

As the waters rose outside, managers wouldn’t let employees leave, he said. Instead, they told people to move their cars away from the rising water. Ingram moved his two separate times because the water wouldn’t stop rising.

“They should’ve evacuated when we got the flash flood warnings, and when they saw the parking lot,” Ingram told the News Sentinel, Knox News. “When we moved our cars we should’ve evacuated then … 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 company confirmed six employees and a contractor are missing but denied allegations that management forced anyone to continue working as waters rose outside. Further, the statement said, while most employees left immediately, some remained on or near the premises. It reiterated management and assistants were the last to exit the building.

Desperate employees seek refuge on semitruck's flatbed

Ingram and 10 other employees were fighting their way through waist-deep water in the parking lot when a semitruck driver from PolyPipe USA, which operates next door, called them over and helped them get onto the back of his open-bed truck, packed full of the large yellow flexible gas pipes.

It provided a temporary respite.

Videos posted by Ingram on Facebook show dark brown, raging rapids running through the company’s parking lot, picking up vehicles that then bobbed up and down like toys in a bathtub.

In their panic, the group called 911 and were told rescuers would be there in 15-20 minutes.

But help was a long way away.

“We called the police station God knows how many times,” Ingram said. “For two or three hours we were on the back of the trailer … it was because the hospital was about to collapse, and I understand that, but they shouldn’t have told us someone was on the way (when they weren’t).”

As he waited, Ingram thought about his family, about his 2-year-old daughter and his fiancée. He called his dad and told him to tell them he loved them.

Into the water

Suddenly, a piece of debris hit the truck. The jolt knocked a woman into the rapids, Ingram said.

Soon after, a second piece of debris smashed into the truck and another woman fell into the water and was swept away, he said.

The truck was hit again, but this time the piece of debris was much bigger, the impact much harder, and the the truck flipped. Ingram crammed his hands under a plastic band around the yellow pipes.

It saved his life.

“I wedged my hands into it, and it took everything I had to hang on,” he said. “I seen them (the pipes) floating down river, so that’s what gave us the idea. We knew it was floating.”

Roughly half a mile from the factory, Ingram and four other employees came to rest atop a pile of debris.

They were safe, though they didn't know it at that moment.

After an hour or so passed, a rescue helicopter from the Tennessee National Guard plucked them from danger.

Some of the Impact Plastics employees did not survive

One of the employees who died, Bertha Mendoza, 56, fell off the truck and vanished into the flood, according to Ingram and a representative from Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

Mendoza was separated from her sister as the two tried to stay afloat, according to a GoFundMe page dedicated to her. Her body was found Sunday, the page says, but Mendoza has not yet been publicly identified by officials.

Another employee, Rosa Maria Andrade Reynoso, has been missing. Her husband, Francesco Guerro, told Knox News through a translator that officials didn’t ask families for any identifying features – clothing or tattoos. They didn’t even ask for pictures, he said. (Officials began asking for photos Monday, Sept. 30.)

Ingram told Knox News that Reynoso was one of the employees who climbed onto the flatbed with him.

Reynoso was in touch with her husband throughout the morning and sent videos showing water rising up to her ankles, Guerro said. In one of her last messages, she told him the water had gotten so high she wasn’t sure if she would be able to get out.

She told him to take care of the kids, he said.

He tried to get to his wife, but by the time he made near the factory, roads were closed. He tried unsuccessfully to get to the factory by several routes. At the time, there were helicopters circulating in Erwin to rescue those trapped atop Unicoi County Hospital. Every time he saw a helicopter, he hoped she would be on it.

“She never came, she never came,” he said.

Reporter Areena Arora, senior editor Sarah Riley and photographer Saul Young contributed to this report.