Tennessee investigates plastics factory where Helene floods killed 11 workers

A plastics plant in Tennessee kept workers going until it was too late to evacuate before flooding from Hurricane Helene overwhelmed the building, employees said. The company now likely faces civil liability lawsuits and increased workers’ compensation costs after the deaths of 11 people.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is looking into the circumstances at the Impact Plastics plant in Erwin at the behest of the local attorney, Attorney General Steven Finney said in a statement.

“Early yesterday morning, I spoke with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and asked them to look into the allegations involving Impact Plastics in Unicoi County, Tennessee,” Finney said. “Specifically, we have asked that they review the events of Friday, September 27, 2024, to identify any potential criminal violations.”

Several employees who escaped last week said the company ignored warnings and would not allow workers to evacuate in time to avoid the rapidly rising waters of the Nolichucky River, according to Forbes magazine, the Associated Press and numerous other news reports.

Four other workers were still missing Wednesday, the AP reported.

A company spokesman told the news service that company officials were devastated by the loss of employees. The manufacturer has not been contacted by investigators, but will cooperate fully. The company is also preparing its own review of the tragedy.

The Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration said it is also investigating. Companies have eight hours to report a workplace death, but Impact had not provided a report by Wednesday evening, the AP noted.

Some workers were able to leave the plant, about 50 miles north of Asheville, but others were trapped by clogged roads as water swept away vehicles, news sites reported. A worker filmed the rescue with a Tennessee National Guard helicopter.

Worker Robert Jarvis told WCYB TV news that the plastics company should have let people leave the site earlier.

Tennessee’s workers’ compensation law, beginning in 2022, provided $10,000 in funeral costs and up to $1,060 in weekly death benefits to surviving family members of workers killed on the job. The maximum total benefits allowed was $477,000, according to the latest compilation by the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute. Spousal benefits cease upon remarriage.

If family members or plastics plant workers who were injured in the flood want to challenge the amount of benefits, they may have trouble finding legal representation. A number of Tennessee workers’ compensation attorneys have said in recent years that attorneys in the state stopped practicing compensation law after 2013 legislation that limited some disability payouts and limited attorneys’ fees to 20 percent of the award.

Workers’ compensation appeals to the Tennessee Supreme Court dropped after the 2013 changes, from 425 in the five years before the legislation to 39 in the five years after, the state Bureau of Workers’ Compensation explained in an annual report from 2018.

Meanwhile, about 150 miles southeast of the plastics plant, two firefighters lost their lives when a tree fell on a fire truck during Helene’s heavy winds and rain, the Associated Press reported. The men were a fire chief and a new firefighter in Saluda, South Carolina.

The South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act of 2022 provided a maximum of $903 in weekly benefits for surviving family members, up to 500 weeks.

In Macon County and Madison County, North Carolina, two sheriff’s employees died in floodwaters from the Cullasaja River, news sites reported.

Photo: A photo of the Impact Plastics plant was not available Thursday, but nearby Unicoi County Hospital also experienced heavy flooding during the storm, and workers and patients had to be rescued from the roof. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

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Flood Manufacturing Tennessee