Workers Say They Weren't Allowed to Go as Waters Rose

Surviving workers at a plastics factory in eastern Tennessee say that as floodwaters rose on Friday, managers didn't let them leave until it was too late. Out of 11 Impact Plastics workers swept away by flooding in Erwin, near the North Carolina border, two are confirmed dead and four are missing, CBS News reports. Robbie Jarvis tells NBC News that around 30 workers were at the plant in an industrial park next to the Nolichucky River on Friday morning. He says they had been told to be there despite weather warnings about Hurricane Helene. Jarvis says his requests to leave were denied and he was told to move his car twice as water entered the parking lot.

Another worker, Jacob Ingram, tells the Knoxville News Sentinel that he was also asked to move his car twice as the parking lot flooded. "They should've evacuated when we got the flash flood warnings, and when they saw the parking lot. We asked them if we should evacuate, and they told us not yet, it wasn't bad enough," he says. "And by the time it was bad enough, it was too late unless you had a four-wheel-drive."

• Ingram says he and 10 other workers were wading through waist-deep water in the parking lot when a driver from a neighboring business helped them get in the bed of his semitruck. He says that after hours waiting for rescue, the truck was flipped by floodwaters and debris and the workers were swept away.
• Ingram says he and four other workers clung to plastic pipes that had been in the back of the open-bed truck. They floated for around half a mile before they reached a pile of debris and were rescued by helicopter.

• The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says it is investigating allegations against Impact Plastics at the request of District Attorney General Steve Finney, who asked the agency to review events to "identify any potential criminal violations," NBC News reports.
• In a statement, the company said it monitored weather conditions Friday morning. "When water began to cover the parking lot and the adjacent service road and the plant lost power, employees were dismissed by management to return to their homes in time to escape the industrial park," the company said, per WBIR. "At no time were employees told they would be fired if they left the facility."
• The company said most employees left immediately but some remained on or near the premises "for unknown reasons." Jarvis says there were chaotic scenes as workers trapped by flooding tried to escape. "I just wish we never went to work that day," he says. "Because it was unnecessary, all these lives we lost because of that. It was wrong."

(Elsewhere in Erwin, dozens of patients and staffers were rescued from a hospital roof.)