Surging floodwater and panicked prayers: How a workday at a Tennessee plastics factory turned deadly
An NBC News investigation and timeline reveals how events quickly and dramatically unfolded amid a "one-in-5,000-year flood.
ERWIN, Tenn. — As Hurricane Helene dumped record levels of rain on East Tennessee, the swollen Nolichucky River overtook a small plastics factory and the only road out. A panicked group of workers, who had climbed aboard a truck’s trailer in front of the plant, were swept away by the raging floodwater.
In the days after the Sept. 27 flood, the bodies of five of the Impact Plastics Inc. employees were found: Sibrina Barnett, 53; Monica Hernandez-Corona, 44; Bertha Mendoza, 56; Johnny Peterson, 55; and Lidia Verdugo Gastelum, 63. The search continues for a sixth employee, Rosa Maria Andrade Reynosa, 29. Five employees on the trailer survived.
Rev. Tom Charters, speaks during a vigil for the Erwin, Tenn. flood victims on Oct. 3. From right, are portraits of Sibrina Barnett, Johnny Peterson, Lydia Verdugo, Rosa Maria Adrade Reynoso, Monica Hernandez Corona, and Bertha Mendoza.Saul Young / The Knoxville News-Sentinel via USA Today NetworkMichael Dorsey, the driver, said he and the others clung to cargo in the step-deck trailer — a split-level open bed that attaches to a semi-truck cab — as the water rose. But debris hit the trailer several times and it capsized, sending them into the fast-moving river, according to Impact Plastics and Dorsey.
The tragedy shook Erwin, a working-class mountain town in Appalachia of about 6,000. Some relatives and community members described lackluster efforts to find their loved ones. And frustration peaked when a state official — pressed by the mostly Latino relatives of the missing employees — said he was unaware of the town’s Latino community. Mostly, families wanted answers to a critical question: How could this happen?
Now, an NBC News investigation based on interviews with survivors, messages between families and victims, National Weather Service alerts and data, company statements and other material reveals how events unfolded on the day a workplace in the Tennessee mountains became the deadly focal point of a one-in-5,000-year flood.
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