NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee state authorities said Wednesday they are investigating the company behind a plastics factory where 11 workers were swept away by flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Helene.
As the nearby Nolichucky River swelled from rainfall, employees in the Impact Plastics factory in Erwin, a small community in rural Tennessee, kept working. Several asserted that they weren’t allowed to leave in time to avoid the storm’s impact. It wasn’t until water flooded into the parking lot and the power went out that the plant shut down and sent workers home.
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee state authorities said Wednesday they are investigating the company behind a plastics factory where 11 workers were swept away by flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Helene.
This image taken from video from the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency shows a helicopter on the roof of Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tenn., where patients and staff had to be rescued from after the Nolichucky River flooded and surrounded the building from Hurricane Helene, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Tennessee Emergency Management Agency via AP)
An aerial view of flood-damaged Unicoi County Hospital in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Erwin, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
An aerial view of flood-damaged Unicoi County Hospital in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Erwin, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
An aerial view of flood damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Erwin, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
An aerial view of flood damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Erwin, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Several never made it.
The raging waters swept 11 people away, and only five were rescued. Two of them are confirmed dead and are part of a toll across six states that has surpassed 160. Four others in the factory are still missing since they were washed away Friday in Erwin, where dozens of people were also rescued off the roof of a hospital.
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokesperson Leslie Earhart said Wednesday that the agency is investigating allegations involving Impact Plastics at the direction of the local prosecutor.
District Attorney Steven R. Finney said in a statement that he asked the bureau to look into any potential criminal violations related to the “occurrences” on Friday.
Some workers managed to drive away from the plant, while others got caught on a clogged road where water rose high enough to sweep vehicles away. Videos show the brown floodwaters covering the nearby highway and lapping at the doors of Impact Plastics.
Jacob Ingram, a mold changer at the factory, filmed himself and four others waiting for rescue as bobbing vehicles floated by. He later posted the videos on Facebook with the caption, “Just wanna say im lucky to be alive.” Videos of the helicopter rescue were posted on social media later Saturday.
In one video, Ingram looks down at the camera, a green Tennessee National Guard helicopter hovering above him, hoisting one of the other survivors. In another, a soldier rigs the next evacuee in a harness.
Impact Plastics said in a statement Monday that it “continued to monitor weather conditions" Friday and that managers dismissed employees “when water began to cover the parking lot and the adjacent service road, and the plant lost power."
In interviews with local news outlets, two of the workers who made it out of the facility disputed those claims. One told News 5 WCYB that employees were made to wait until it was “too late.” Another, Ingram, made a similar statement to the Knoxville News Sentinel.
“They should’ve evacuated when we got the flash flood warnings, and when they saw the parking lot,” Ingram said. “We asked them if we should evacuate, and they told us not yet, it wasn’t bad enough.”
Worker Robert Jarvis told News 5 WCYB that the company should have let them leave earlier.
Jarvis said he tried to drive away in his car, but the water on the main road got too high, and only off-road vehicles were finding ways out of the flood zone.
“The water was coming up,” he said. “A guy in a 4x4 came, picked a bunch of us up and saved our lives, or we’d have been dead, too.”
The 11 workers found temporary respite on the back of a truck driven by a passerby, but it soon tipped over after debris hit it, Ingram said.
Ingram said he survived by grabbing onto plastic pipes that were on the truck. He said he and four others floated for about half a mile (about 800 meters) before they found safety on a sturdy pile of debris.
“We are devastated by the tragic loss of great employees,” company founder Gerald O’Connor said in the statement Monday. “Those who are missing or deceased, and their families are in our thoughts and prayers.”
The two confirmed dead at the Tennessee plastics factory are Mexican citizens, said Lisa Sherman-Nikolaus, executive director at Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. She said many of the victims’ families have started online fundraisers to cover funeral costs and other expenses.
Bertha Mendoza was with her sister when the flooding started, but they got separated, according to a eulogy on her GoFundMe page authored by her daughter-in-law, who declined an interview request.
“She was loved dearly by her family, community, her church family, and co-workers,” the eulogy read.
Attanasio reported from New York. AP journalists Rhonda Shafner and Beatrice Dupuy contributed from New York.
In this image made from a video provided by NewsNation, people can be seen on the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tenn., on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (NewsNation via AP)
This image taken from video from the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency shows a helicopter on the roof of Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tenn., where patients and staff had to be rescued from after the Nolichucky River flooded and surrounded the building from Hurricane Helene, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Tennessee Emergency Management Agency via AP)
An aerial view of flood-damaged Unicoi County Hospital in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Erwin, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
An aerial view of flood-damaged Unicoi County Hospital in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Erwin, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
An aerial view of flood damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Erwin, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
An aerial view of flood damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Erwin, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Israeli military said Wednesday that seven soldiers were killed in combat in southern Lebanon, a day after it announced a ground incursion into that country.
Fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants is ongoing in southern Lebanon, both sides said in separate statements.
The announcement comes as Israel sends more troops and artillery to the border area.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops battled Hezbollah militants inside Lebanon on Wednesday after launching what they say are limited ground operations there. The region meanwhile braced for further escalation as Israel vowed to retaliate for Iran's ballistic missile attack the day before.
In Gaza, where the nearly yearlong war that triggered the widening conflict rages on with no end in sight, Israeli ground and air operations in a hard-hit city killed at least 51 people, including women and children, Palestinian medical officials said.
Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets across Gaza nearly a year after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack ignited the war.
The escalation on multiple fronts has raised fears of a wider war in the Middle East that could further draw in Iran — which backs Hezbollah and Hamas — as well as the United States, which has rushed military assets to the region in support of Israel.
Hezbollah, widely seen as the most powerful armed group in the region, said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops in two places inside Lebanon near the border. The Israeli military said ground forces backed by airstrikes had killed militants in “close-range engagements” without saying where.
The military also announced that soldier — a 22-year-old captain in a commando brigade — was killed in combat in Lebanon, the first such death since the start of the latest operations.
Israeli media reported infantry and tank units operating in southern Lebanon after the military sent thousands of additional troops and artillery to the border.
The Lebanese army said Israeli forces had advanced some 400 meters (yards) across the border and withdrew “after a short period,” its first confirmation of the incursion.
The Israeli military has warned people in around 50 villages and towns to evacuate north of the Awali River, some 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the border and much farther than the northern edge of a U.N.-declared zone intended to serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah after their 2006 war. Hundreds of thousands have already fled their homes as the conflict has intensified.
Israel has said it will continue to strike Hezbollah until it is safe for tens of thousands of its citizens displaced from homes near the Lebanon border to return. Hezbollah has vowed to keep firing rockets into Israel until there is a cease-fire in Gaza with Hamas.
Israeli strikes have killed over 1,000 people in Lebanon over the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry.
Meanwhile, Israel lashed out at the United Nations on Wednesday, declaring Secretary-General António Guterres persona non grata, or banned from entering the country. Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused him of failing to unequivocally condemn the Iranian attack.
Guterres had released a brief statement after the barrage that read: “I condemn the broadening of the Middle East conflict, with escalation after escalation. This must stop. We absolutely need a cease-fire.”
The move deepens an already wide rift between Israel and the United Nations.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said at least 51 people were killed and 82 wounded in the operation in Khan Younis that began early Wednesday. Records at the European Hospital show that seven women and 12 children, as young as 22 months old, were among those killed.
Another 23 people, including two children, were killed in separate strikes across Gaza, according to local hospitals.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Residents said Israel had carried out heavy airstrikes as its ground forces staged an incursion into three neighborhoods in Khan Younis. Mahmoud al-Razd, who had four relatives among those killed, described heavy destruction and said first responders had struggled to reach destroyed homes.
“The explosions and shelling were massive,” he told The Associated Press. “Many people are thought to be under the rubble, and no one can retrieve them.”
Israel carried out a weekslong offensive earlier this year in Khan Younis that left much of Gaza's second largest city in ruins. Over the course of the war, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to areas of Gaza as militants have regrouped.
On Oct. 7, Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 hostage. Some 100 have not yet been released, around 65 of whom are believed to be alive.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters but says a little more than half were women and children. The military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Iran launched at least 180 missiles into Israel on Tuesday in what it said was retaliation for a series of devastating blows Israel has landed in recent weeks against Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into Israel since the war in Gaza began in solidarity with Hamas.
Israelis scrambled for bomb shelters as air raid sirens sounded and the orange glow of missiles streaked across the night sky.
The Israeli military said it intercepted many of the incoming Iranian missiles, though some landed in central and southern Israel and two people were lightly wounded by shrapnel.
Several missiles landed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where one of them killed a Palestinian worker from Gaza who had been stranded in the territory since the war broke out.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate, saying Iran “made a big mistake tonight and it will pay for it.”
U.S. President Joe Biden said his administration is “fully supportive” of Israel and that he’s discussing with aides what the appropriate response should be.
Iran said it would respond to any violation of its sovereignty with even heavier strikes on Israeli infrastructure.
Iran said it fired Tuesday’s missiles as retaliation for attacks that killed leaders of Hezbollah, Hamas and its own paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. It referenced Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, both killed in an Israeli airstrike last week in Beirut. It also mentioned Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader in Hamas who was assassinated in Tehran in a suspected Israeli attack in July.
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Palestinians mourn for relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at a hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians mourn for relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at a hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians mourn for relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at a hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A Palestinian woman mourns a child killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at a hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians mourn for relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at a hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from northern Israel towards Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
Flames rise from an apartment which caught fire after an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Civil defense firefighters try to extinguish the fire on an apartment following an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from northern Israel towards Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
Smoke rises following Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
Civil Defense remove debris from a destroyed complex hit in Israeli airstrikes in Dahieh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A man takes pictures by his mobile phone of a destroyed building hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A man passes in front of a destroyed building that hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Smoke rises from a destroyed resident complex hit by Israeli airstrikes in Dahieh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Workers remove broken glass from a damaged building that was hit during Iran's missile attack in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A woman looks from a damaged building that was hit during Iran's missile attack in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Broken wine glasses are seen in a damaged restaurant that was hit during Iran's missile attack in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A man takes pictures with his mobile phone of a destroyed resident complex where he lives that hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Smoke rises a neighborhood that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Smoke rises from neighbourhoods hit by Israeli airstrikes in Dahieh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Lebanese soldiers stand in front of an apartment which caught fire after an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Smoke rises following Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
An Israeli soldier covered in a prayer shawl prays at a mobile artillery position in northern Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from northern Israel towards Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from northern Israel towards Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
Smoke rises following Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A Middle East Airlines airplane flies over Beirut as smoke rises from Dahiyeh, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
An Israeli tank maneuvers in northern Israel near the Israel-Lebanon border, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
People take cover on the side of a road as a siren sounds a warning of incoming missiles fired from Iran on a freeway in Shoresh, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in Israel Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
A cleric clenches his fist as he celebrates Iran's missile strike against Israel in an anti-Israeli gathering at Felestin (Palestine) Sq. in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Israelis take cover as projectiles launched from Iran are being intercepted in the skies over in Rosh HaAyin, Israel, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from northern Israel towards Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
