Devastated by floods: How a Tennessee town is struggling to recover after Hurricane Helene
In Erwin, Tennessee, as families of the dead deal with their loved ones' absences, businesses at a destroyed industrial park still hope to reopen and officials look for ways to pay for costly rebuilding.
Gaby Torres thought she’d have returned to work by now at Plastiexports in Erwin, Tennessee, one of several businesses destroyed or damaged when Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters ripped through the town’s industrial park on Sept. 27.
But the new year is fast approaching and there are still months of work expected to dig the business out of mud and debris, and repair or replace equipment there.
“I’m going to keep on volunteering until maybe the 1st of the year,” Torres said. Though she’s had other job offers, she hates the idea of leaving her old job. "I've worked there for so long," Torres said. "I've been with that plant, the same owners, for 19 years, so it's hard to start all over again."
“Economically, our area has been hit like nothing in the past ever before,” says Heathur Sawyer, the owner of a tattoo studio in Johnson City.Angelina Alcantar / USA Today NetworkThe violent storms of this year's hurricane season, which dropped death and devastation in the mountainous region of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, have given way to Arctic cold fronts and bouts of snowfall.Erwin, a small town of about 6,000, was flung into mourning and survival mode in September when the swollen Nolichucky River swept away people’s lives and livelihoods. The surging water wiped out several businesses in the town’s industrial park, including Impact Plastics. It killed six workers, sweeping them away as they struggled to reach safety.
The town has been left with the sorrow of those losses. It took more than a month to find the bodies of all the Impact Plastics workers gone missing; the last one to be found was Rosa Maria Andrade Reynoso, 29, on Oct. 31. Along with the trauma and grief, Erwin was left with destroyed roads, devastated farms, unemployed residents, costly rebuilding and tons of mud and debris that has made the cleanup slow and daunting.
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