Rescuers find body of worker swept away from Tennessee factory by Hurricane Helene flood

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Rescuers find body of worker swept away from Tennessee factory by Hurricane Helene flood

2024-11-02 04:04 Last Updated At：04:10

ERWIN, Tenn. (AP) — Rescue workers in Tennessee said Friday they have recovered the body of the final person still missing after massive flooding from Hurricane Helene hit a plastics factory there.

Rosa Andrade, 29, was one of six employees killed after they were unable to escape the rising waters around Impact Plastics in Erwin, a small town in East Tennessee. Surviving workers have stated they were not allowed to leave until water had flooded the plant’s parking lot and the power went out. Eleven people were swept away and only five were rescued.

The captain of Unicoi County Search and Rescue, Andrew Harris, said emergency workers discovered Andrade's body on Wednesday, more than a month after the Sept. 27 flood of the Nolichucky River.

Normally running 2 feet (61 centimeters) deep, the river rose to a record 30 feet (9.1 meters) that day, with more than 1.4 million gallons (5.3 million liters) of water running downstream each second — twice as much as Niagara Falls.

Relatives of some of those who were killed have sued Impact Plastics and its owner, Gerald O’Connor. They include the family of Johnny Peterson, who managed to climb onto a bed of a semi-trailer that was attempting to escape the area and send text messages to his family before being swept away.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is probing the allegations involving Impact Plastics at the direction of the local prosecutor. The state’s workplace safety office has also opened its own investigation into the circumstances behind the deaths.

O’Connor has said no employees were forced to keep working, and they were evacuated at least 45 minutes before the massive force of the flood hit the industrial park.

The workers who died were among the more than 200 people killed by Helene in remote towns throughout the Appalachians. It was the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005. The storm also left millions without power, knocked out cellular service and destroyed drinking water systems.

Spiritual, not spooky. After Halloween, Christians observe All Saints' Day

2024-11-02 04:09 Last Updated At：04:10

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — It's the time of year — tradition says — when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is lifted.

That traditional belief has morphed over the centuries into the spooky and secular celebration of Halloween.

But on Friday, Christians in many countries around the world are celebrating All Saints' Day, a somber and spiritual day in the church's liturgical calendar that shares pagan roots with Halloween.

The word “Halloween” derives from “All Hallows Eve,” which means the eve of All Saints’ Day, a holiday that has also been known as All Hallows. It honors martyrs and saints — those who were hallowed, or deemed holy — a tradition begun by the Roman Catholic church in the early medieval period.

Scholars believe that the spectral aspects of Halloween emerged primarily from Samhain, an ancient Celtic festival that occurred during the harvest season, said Morgan Shipley, a professor of religious studies at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

It was a time when people were “transitioning from harvest and bounty and the fullness of summer to the desolation of winter,” he said. “And it was said that in this time the veil between the physical, material human world and the spiritual world essentially dissipates away.”

Some of the spirits or spectral beings were viewed as demonic in nature, and bonfires became a way to ward them away, or were used in divination by druid priests and priestesses when the veil between the material and spiritual world broke down, he said.

As Christianity spread, many pagan rituals were adapted to the new faith to be more attractive to converts. The period of reflecting on the dead continues though Nov. 2, which is All Souls’ Day.

In Central Europe, the Slavic and Baltic populations had their own rituals in which the living communed with the dead between Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.

Believers and non-believers alike in many traditionally Roman Catholic societies observe the day.

Finka Heynemann, 34, visited Warsaw's Brodno cemetery on Friday morning with her mother. The two had plans to visit six cemeteries in Warsaw over three days — even though they are not religious.

“It's just important to keep the tradition and visit the graves and to respect and honor ancestors,” Heynemann said.

“This day is more important than Christmas or Easter," added her mother, Maja Gąssowska, who paused to drop money in a collection box for a Polish cemetery in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, which was once part of Poland.

In Poland, many travel back to their family homes to gather with those still living and reflect on those who have left them.

So many people observe the holiday that cemeteries are transformed into flickering carpets of light so impressive that even the most secular cannot help but feel moved. Cities, including Warsaw and Krakow, run additional tram and bus lines to ferry the huge numbers to — and between — cemeteries.

While the reflections are mostly personal, people also leave candles at the graves of national heroes. So many people visit cemeteries at the same time that the celebration takes on a communal quality.

It has become so much part of the wider culture in Poland that people visit Orthodox Christian, Jewish and Muslim cemeteries as well.

In the Philippines, millions visited the tombs of their loved ones on Friday.

“Even if I’m old, I still visit the tombs of my relatives, especially my husband’s, during All Saints’ Day," said Manila resident Dory Oliquino, who was among thousands arriving with flowers and candles at the Manila North Cemetery in the country's capital. “As long as I can walk, I will visit him.”

Italians traditionally visit cemeteries to light candles or lay flowers to pay tribute to deceased family members on All Souls' Day, this year falling on Saturday. Pope Francis will visit Rome’s third-largest cemetery, the Laurentino Cemetery, to celebrate Mass and lead prayers for the dead. The pope visited the same cemetery in 2018, stopping to pray in an area dedicated to fetuses.

In recent years as the holiday approaches, there are discussions about Halloween and its compatibility with Christian beliefs in the afterlife.

Poles began to celebrate Halloween after the fall of communism in 1989, but some worry that the foreign cultural import could eventual dilute the tradition of All Saints' Day. Some Catholics worry that it also might be sinful due to allusions to devils and ghosts. Pushing back, some church groups have begun holding alternative events for All Saints’ Day.

This week, a church group organized the 3rd All Saints’ Ball in the Polish town of Plock, according to a Catholic news site, Niedziela — meaning Sunday — which reported that “the children came dressed as saints and blessed of the Catholic Church and as angels.”

Associated Press writers Colleen Barry in Milan and Basilio Sepe in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.