Tennessee Factory Worker Breaks Down While Detailing What He Faced While Forced To Work Through Hurricane Helene, Leading To 2 Deaths & 4 Disappearances
"Why'd you make us work that day? Why?," Robert Jarvis tearfully asked. Impact Plastics denies its workers' allegations.
ArtMari | Shutterstock Among the myriad bracing accounts of Hurricane Helene and its aftermath, one experience in particular has left many in shock: the situation at the Impact Plastics factory in Erwin, Tennessee. According to reports, at least two employees have died and several others are missing after workers say their bosses threatened them with termination if they did not stay and work through the storm.
Now, two surviving employees shared bracing accounts of what happened at the factory that day, and, like the state of Tennessee which has launched an investigation into the incident, they are demanding answers from their bosses.
Tennessee Impact Plastics factory worker Robert Jarvis broke down while detailing what he and his co-workers faced during Hurricane Helene.
The situation in Erwin, Tennessee is nothing short of shocking. As torrential rains from Helene swelled the nearby Nolichucky River, workers say their bosses forced them to continue working. It wasn't until the power went out that they were finally allowed to leave.
By then, it was too late — catastrophic floods had engulfed the town, and 11 workers were swept away in the waters while attempting to leave the inundated factory. Two of them are confirmed dead and four others remain missing.
Speaking to local news station WCYB, Impact Plastics employee Robert Jarvis, who survived the harrowing disaster, has shared his disturbing and infuriating account of what happened that day, the callous response he says workers received from management that resulted in the deaths of his colleagues, and Impact Plastics' version of events from that day.
Impact Plastics denies employees were threatened with termination and says they were given ample time to leave.
In statements, Impact Plastics expressed sympathy to workers and their family members but countered that sympathy with claims that they stayed at work in the factory of their own volition and were given ample time to safely leave the factory.
"While most employees left immediately, some remained on or near the premises for unknown reasons," the company said in a shockingly callous statement to media outlets.
The company also defended its managers' decisions and performance, adding, "senior management and assistants remained to oversee employee departures, assess damage and preserve company records. They were the last to exit the building."
The company also denies ever threatening employees with termination if they left and claims that all communication was delivered to employees in both English and Spanish after many have speculated that a language barrier among many of the factory's Hispanic employees helped facilitate the disaster.
But Jarvis says Impact Plastics' statements are 'lies,' and that he and his co-workers were forced to stay at work until it was too late.
Asked by WCYB how Impact Plastics' statement made him feel, Jarvis said they left him feeling "anger" and "hurt," and that the company's version of events was "lies."
"What really happened was that we were all working and the power went out," he said. "I got a text right when the power went out from another employee saying that the parking lot was flooded."
After surveying the scene, Jarvis says he was told by a manager to move his car to "higher ground," but no dry ground existed due to the floodwaters. When he asked to leave, he was told he could not do so until that manager spoke with another manager.
"Ten minutes later she came back and said y'all can leave," Jarvis said, but by then, "it was too late. We had one way in, one way out… and the one way out was blocked off so we were stuck."
Employees from another nearby business showed up to try to help, even cutting open a fence along another road in an effort to give the Impact Plastics employees some hope of escape. But the water was rising too fast.
Jarvis said his own car began to be swept away, and it was only the interventions of Good Samaritans that saved his and many other lives.
"A guy in a 4x4 came and picked a bunch of us up and saved our lives or we'd have been dead too," he said.
The state of Tennessee has now launched an investigation into Impact Plastics.
It's not just Jarvis and other witnesses who say Impact Plastics is lying about what happened during Hurricane Helene. Another employee, Jacob Ingram, told a similar story. He also shot harrowing video footage showing that the situation was well out of hand before employees were finally allowed to attempt to escape.
For his part, Ingram says, "they have to pay for what they did." Like Jarvis, he says he personally asked to leave as the flooding ensued but was denied. He and other co-workers ended up taking refuge atop a semi-truck for more than two hours until it flipped over, hurling them into the floodwaters. He and four other employees were among those rescued via helicopter from the National Guard.
Ingram's footage shows floodwaters nearly to the roof of buildings near the factory, prompting an investigation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation into "potential criminal violations" in Impact Plastics' handling of the situation.
The Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration has said they are now coordinating with the TBI to perform an "on-site inquiry into the circumstances that led to the deaths of employees at Impact Plastics," according to investigation spokesperson Chris Cannon.
Jarvis and Ingram join their fallen co-workers' families in demanding Impact Plastics' answer for the 'greed' that resulted in their deaths.
"It hurts," Jarvis told WYCB of his colleagues who have died or disappeared. "It hurts knowing that they didn't make it… It just doesn't seem fair to me that they didn't make it."
He is joining the chorus of family members of the fallen who are also furious with what they say is the company's pivotal role in their loved ones' deaths and disappearances. Two of the fallen died while trying to escape.
Survivor Guillermo Mendoza says his mother, Bertha Mendoza, died after being swept away from the flatbed of a truck that had come to rescue her from the floodwaters that had engulfed the factory. Another, Lidia Verdugo, was also swept away after she fell from a vehicle rescuing her, according to her son Fernando Ruiz.
@[eff]youiquit | X
Asked what he would like to say to Impact Plastics about his experience and the loss of his co-workers, Jarvis was overcome with emotion as he asked one simple question. "Why'd you make us work that day? Why? We shouldn't have worked, we shouldn't have been there. None of us should have been there… They were good, every one of them were good people."
He chalks their deaths and disappearances up to one thing and one thing only. "It broke my heart to see that they died and they didn't make it all because of greed."
It remains to be seen what the investigations into the Impact Plastics matter will uncover, but it's hard to think of a more stomach-turning example of America's astonishingly sick work culture and the barbaric treatment of workers, especially low-wage and blue-collar ones, that has become par for the course.
How many more American workers will have to die after being forced to choose between their livelihoods and their well-being?
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.