One worker said Impact Plastics managers would not let employees leave, which company denies

Several employees at a plastics factory in eastern Tennessee were killed during Hurricane Helene or are missing, amid warnings that the storm’s current death toll of more than 130 is likely to rise substantially as subsiding floodwaters allow rescuers to search through the wreckage.

Impact Plastics confirmed there had been fatalities at its plant in Erwin but did not say how many people had been killed. The company said there were missing and deceased employees as well as a contractor.

Jacob Ingram, a mold changer at the company, told the Knoxville News Sentinel that as the flooding started, managers instructed employees to move their cars away from the rising water – but would not let them leave. “They should’ve evacuated when we got the flash flood warnings, and when they saw the parking lot,” he said to the newspaper. "When we moved our cars, we should’ve evacuated then … we asked them if we should evacuate, and they told us not yet, it wasn’t bad enough.

  • b161
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    1 month ago

    At least they died making a line go up in the bank account of some rich people who already have more than enough money than they know what to do with.

    • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      The line must always go up.

      And by line, I mean ladder. Pulled up by the people who got in early or had nepotistic connections. While they tower above us and demand we run inside a hamster wheel for the privilege of being alive.

      Oh boy do I love our currently-fucked society.