'All because of greed': 6 die at factory that told employees to work during Helene or be fired

01 October 2024

Several workers are dead after a factory in Tennessee reportedly made them report to work despite the threat of Hurricane Helene and wouldn't let them leave until it was too late.

That's according to Robert Jarvis, who talked to Johnson City, Tennessee news outlet WCYB after the storm raged through his community and killed several of his coworkers. Jarvis said that his bosses were hesitant to let employees leave the premises until it was too late and the storm was upon them.

"We were all working, and the power went out, and i got a text right when the power went out from another employee saying that the parking lot was flooded. I started walking out towards the break room — that's where you walk out at to the parking lot — and I seen the parking lot flooded," Jarvis recalled. "And I was like, 'what do I do?' And they told me to move my car. So I went to go move my car to higher ground, which it was still in water, there was no dry ground in that parking lot, I got out, I said 'Can we leave?' And the woman said 'no, not until I speak with Gerry [Impact Plastics founder Gerald O'Connor]."

"About 10 minutes later she came back and said 'y'all can leave.' It was too late," Jarvis continued. "We had one way in, one way out, and when they told us we could leave, the one way out was blocked off. So we were stuck in traffic blocked on that road waiting to see what we were gonna do. Because everyone knew it was one way."

"I lost my car and it started floating down the river. We didn't know what to do, we were in panic mode," he said. "Water was coming up. And then we did what we had to do to survive. There was a guy in a 4x4 who came and picked us up and saved a bunch of our lives, or we would've been dead too."

The Guardian reported Tuesday that several Impact Plastics workers were among the more than 130 killed by Helene due to the devastating floods it caused in multiple states. Both Jarvis and Impact Plastics mold changer Jacob Ingram confirmed that the company wouldn't allow workers to escape flood waters ahead of time.

“They should’ve evacuated when we got the flash flood warnings, and when they saw the parking lot,” Ingram told the Knoxville News-Sentinel. “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."

"Why did 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... Why did you make us work when you knew you made a statement that you were monitoring it? Why did you make us stay and work?" Jarvis said when a WCYB reporter asked what he wanted to say to the company.

"They shouldn't have made us go into work that day," he continued. "Every one of them was good people. I worked with them every day. And we were like family. We cut up, we joked there. And it broke my heart to see that they died and they didn't make it. All because of greed, I think."

In a statement, O'Connor said he was "devastated by the tragic loss of great employees" and that "those who are missing or deceased, and their families are in our thoughts and prayers."

Watch Jarvis' interview below, or by clicking this link.

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