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

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.

  • frostysauce@lemmy.world
    117·
    28 days ago

    Because they are undocumented and are afraid their employer will have them deported if they don’t do what they’re told. That’s one reason.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
      131·
      28 days ago

      Because they are undocumented

      I didn’t hear that anywhere. Usually it’s just people trying not to lose their job in a region where they’re scarce, and playing the odds with the severity.

      • PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works
        4·
        28 days ago

        FTA:

        The Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) said in a statement that it had seen people affected struggling to get help from authorities.

        “TIRRC staff members who deployed to the area witnessed community members struggling to access interpretation services from local and state government agencies, as well as requests by agencies for identification and documentation from immigrant community families that hindered their ability to identify missing loved ones,” the group said in a statement.

      • frostysauce@lemmy.world
        44·
        28 days ago

        I didn’t say that the victims in this tragedy were undocumented. I didn’t hear that anywhere and I’m NOT trying to start a narrative. It was just the first thing that popped into my head when thinking about why a person would be so conditioned in obeying their employer.

        Yours is also a sad but perfectly true reason as well.

    • SupraMario@lemmy.world
      6·
      28 days ago

      There is no proof of this and no the odds of this being why they didn’t leave is so low. Most people in small rural towns don’t have options of employment, so factory work is really all they have access to. It’s a reason why small rural towns die when the mine or factory shuts down.