‘Help us find them’: Watch, prayers for 6 workers swept away by Helene as Tennessee investigates company

Shaking hands, Daniel Delgado kissed a picture of his wife, Monica Hernandez, before lighting a candle in the parking lot of a supermarket in Erwin, Tenn. by the hills.

In the days after six plastic factory workers disappeared under the floods caused by Hurricane Helene, their loved ones and supporters have been gathering vigils in front of churches, a high school and a restaurant to pay their respects.

Most nights, prayers in Spanish are said over the rosary beads: “Mary, mother of Jesus, speak to us and help us find them.”

The storm, which killed at least 227 people in six states, quickly engulfed Erwin, an Appalachian town of about 6,000 people, on September 27 and led to more than 50 people being rescued by helicopter from a flooded hospital roof.

The scar it left behind was devastating to the small Latino community that made up a disproportionate number of the factory workers: Four of the six workers swept away were Mexican Americans.

Two federal investigations have been launched into Impact Plastics and whether the company should have done more to protect workers as the risk grew.

The families of those who were lost say that they still do not understand how intense the storm was and why their loved ones did not leave the factory early to avoid the floods.

“We ask: Why? Why did he go to work? Why was he staying?” Hernandez’s sister, Guadalupe Hernandez-Corona, said through an interpreter after Thursday night’s vigil. “We’re all still wondering.”

Survivors say the evacuation started too late

Impact Plastics president Gerald O’Connor said no workers were forced to continue working and were evacuated at least 45 minutes before the flood hit the industrial park.

“There was time to escape,” he said in a video statement, adding that he was among the last to leave the plant after making sure everyone was out. The National Guard rescued five workers by helicopter.

But surviving workers say the evacuation started too late. Some clung to pipes in truck lots for up to six hours while making 911 calls and saying goodbye to loved ones. Others saw their co-workers being carried away.

Emergency officials said resources were scattered as rescue efforts continued about a mile downstream at the Unicoi County Hospital.

Normally 60 centimeters deep, the Nolichucky River rose to a record 9.1 meters that day, more than 5.3 million gallons per second, twice that of Niagara Falls.

The plastic factory was open, as local schools were closed. Robert Jarvis, who started work at 7 a.m., said workers continued to work when they received phone calls about possible flooding. Many remained even after the management asked them to move the cars because 15 centimeters of water had accumulated in the parking lot.

The workers were finally told to leave after the power went out and when the water was about 30 centimeters high, he said. Jarvis said he only survived because he was pulled into the bed of someone’s truck, which worked the highway for three hours.

Jarvis said the six missing co-workers were “like family” and he felt an obligation to them to share his knowledge.

“They should not have been at work that day,” he said. “None of us should have it.”

Deep ties to the city

Annabel Andrade, the daughter of her cousin, Rosy Reynoso, who is still missing, said that the means of exit are not enough. And O’Connor’s statement angered him: “He left safely. Why was he able to save himself and leave these other workers in despair?”

Alma Vazquez, a case manager for Catholic Charities who met the missing workers decades ago after making a home in Erwin at a migrant farm camp, said the deaths were “totally avoidable.”

“People didn’t have to die where they worked,” he said.

Most of the victims had deep relationships with Erwin. It is more than 90 percent white and about eight percent of the population, about 500 people, identify as Hispanic in 2022 up from 3.8 percent a decade ago, according to Census Bureau figures.

Lidia Verdugo, Bertha Mendoza and Hernandez, all Mexican Americans, have lived in the community for twenty years. Hernandez started working at Impact Plastics shortly after arriving, her sister said.

The latest arrival in Erwin, eight years ago, was 29-year-old Rosy Reynoso. She and her husband had just moved into their own apartment after living with her mother, whom she visited every day. Her 10-year-old son is in Mexico and she was working to bring him here, Andrade said.

Two white plastic workers, Sibrina Barnett and Johnny Peterson, were also swept away.

Prayers, candles are lit at night vigils

There was frustration in the Hispanic community that state officials did not immediately send translators to help survivors, and families were outraged when workers answered calls from missing people only in English.

When the director of the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency was asked why these resources were not found until after a day of searching, he said that they did not realize how many Spanish speakers there were.

“For them, it was very sad to hear that,” said Ana Gutierrez, an organizer with the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition who has been helping the families.

Gutierrez also said that the families felt that their grief was overshadowed by those who rescued the hospital, sharing the news the day it happened when the plant workers did not.

Some comfort has been found in nightly vigils, where people pray in Spanish and English and light candles as the names of the workers are read.

Erwin Mayor Glenn White said he was moved to see the crowd, a mix of Hispanic and white residents, come together in solidarity and grief.

“We are a unique people. Our country’s motto is, ‘Out of the many, come one.’

At Saint Michael the Archangel, where most of the 225 parishioners are Hispanic, families gather to comfort each other and eat Mexican pozole as offerings of water, food and other supplies are brought.

Andrade’s family was one of the first Hispanic families to settle in Erwin in the 1980s. When her 19-year-old son died in 2017, she was the first in the community to lay a family member to rest here, in the nearby Saint Michael Cemetery, instead of sending the body back to Mexico for burial.

Reynoso’s husband, who still hopes her body will be found, initially planned to meet her in Mexico but later decided that her body, if found, would remain in Tennessee.

“You made a life here – your family will be here,” Andrade said. “This is your home.”

Engraved Spanish prayers adorn the cemetery’s tombstones, which Andrade sees as a symbol of the life Spanish immigrants have led in America.

“It’s a way to keep them with us,” he said.