Impact Plastics employees have said management wouldn't allow them to leave the Erwin, Tennessee, factory during Helene flooding until it was too late.

"To our knowledge, no one perished while on company property," said Gerald O’Connor, founder and president of Impact Plastics in Erwin, Tennessee.

A plastics manufacturer in Unicoi County expressed sympathy after several employees went missing or died amid catastrophic flooding. Impact Plastics issued a press release on Monday stating that the company “expresses sympathy for the missing and deceased employees and one contractor during the historic and devastating floods at its facility on

The body of Lidia Verdugo has been recovered in a search for missing employees of Impact Plastics in Erwin, Tennessee.

Company officials said workers were dismissed after water covered the parking lot, service road and the plant lost power.

During the service, family members of the lost Impact Plastic employees honored their loved ones by lighting a candle and holding their portrait.

A devastating flood struck an East Tennessee plastics manufacturing plant during Hurricane Helene, resulting in multiple employees being missing or deceased.

Families of those who died when floodwaters consumed a plastics plant in Tennessee are asking why so many employees were working as the storm rolled in. The bodies of five of six missing employees have now been recovered.

Barnett worked as a custodian at Impact Plastics and was one of the employees stuck on a flatbed semitruck when it overturned Sept. 27.

She was the healer of our family. She loved to cook for her family, for her grandchildren,” Guillermo told NewsNation affiliate WJHL.