An investigation is underway after floodwaters from Helene left two dead and four missing at a plastics factory in rural Tennessee — and surviving workers at the plant say they were told to keep working until it was too late.
What happened?
As heavy rains from Helene swept across the Southeast Friday, waters from the Nolichucky River in Erwin, Tenn., began to rise, rushing across the interstate and into the parking lot at Impact Plastics, reaching the doors of the plant and knocking out the power.
The floodwaters swept away 11 employees as they were trying to leave. Five were rescued, including Jacob Ingram, who later posted videos to Facebook of himself and four others clinging to the back of semi truck. They were eventually plucked from the floodwaters by a National Guard helicopter.
Impact Plastics is located about a mile from Unicoi County Hospital, the site of a dramatic helicopter rescue of 54 staff and patients stranded on the roof the same day.
Read more from the Associated Press:11 workers at a Tennessee factory were swept away in Hurricane Helene flooding. Only 5 were rescued.
What is the company saying?
"We are devastated by the tragic loss of great employees," Impact Plastics founder Gerald O'Connor said in a statement issued by the company Monday. "Those who are missing or deceased, and their families are in our thoughts and prayers."
In the same statement, Impact Plastics said that the company “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."
“At no time were employees told that they would be fired if they left the facility,” the statement said.
What are the employees saying?
Ingram and other survivors say the company waited too long to evacuate.
"They should've evacuated when we got the flash flood warnings, and when they saw the parking lot," Ingram told the Knoxville News Sentinel. "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,” he said, “it was too late.”
"We were all talking to the supervisors and telling everybody, 'Look, we don't need to be here,'" Zinna Adkins, another employee, recalled in an interview with local news station WJHL-TV. "Our phone alerts were saying we need to flee the area. And they never said anything about it. And supervisors didn't tell us that we could go."
“When they told us we could leave, it was just too late,” Robert Jarvis told WCYB-TV. “There was no way out.”
Read more from the Knoxville News-Sentinel: Factory employees clung desperately to a truck before Helene floodwaters swept them away
What’s next?
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has launched a probe into allegations made by the employees against the company, the local district attorney announced Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the community is grieving those who are dead or missing.
Guillermo Mendoza told NBC News that his mother, Bertha Mendoza, a 56-year-old employee at the factory, called her husband as the floodwaters rushed in to tell him she loved him and their children.
“Those were her last words,” he said. Her body was found Saturday.
Francisco Javier Guerrero, the husband of Rosa Andrade Reynoso, a missing 29-year-old plant employee, told WBIR-TV that his wife called him when the power went out at the factory. "She told me goodbye," he said. "And to take care of our kids."
Read more from NBC News:Grief and anger mix as Tennessee plastic plant survivors say permission to leave came too late
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