Gaby Torres thought she’d have returned to work by now at Plastiexports in Erwin, Tennessee, one of several businesses destroyed or damaged when Hurricane on Sept. 27.
But the new year is fast approaching and there are still months of work expected to dig the business out of mud and debris, and repair or replace equipment there.
“I’m going to keep on volunteering until maybe the 1st of the year,” Torres said. Though she’s had other job offers, she hates the idea of leaving her old job.
“I’ve worked there for so long,” Torres said. “I’ve been with that plant, the same owners, for 19 years, so it’s hard to start all over again.”
The violent storms of this year’s hurricane season, which dropped death and devastation in the mountainous region of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, have given way to Arctic cold fronts and bouts of snowfall.
Erwin, a small town of about 6,000, was flung into mourning and survival mode in September when the swollen Nolichucky River swept away people’s lives and livelihoods. The surging water wiped out several businesses in the town’s industrial park, including Impact Plastics. as they struggled to reach safety.
The town has been left with the sorrow of those losses. It took more than a month to find the bodies of all the Impact Plastics workers gone missing; the last one , 29, on Oct. 31.
Along with the trauma and grief, Erwin was left with destroyed roads, devastated farms, unemployed residents, costly rebuilding and tons of mud and debris that has made the cleanup slow and daunting.
Days punctuated by sadness
The relatives of the dead are now enduring holidays without their family members.
The body of , 44, was flown back to her hometown village in Mexico this month, fulfilling her wish, said her sister Guadalupe Hernandez.
An employee of Impact Plastics, Hernandez-Corona had been taking refuge from the raging floodwaters on a flatbed trailer when water and debris tipped it over, spilling her and others into the flood.
This was typically the time of year for sisterly bonding between Monica and Guadalupe. They would anticipate the coming holidays and organize their family gathering, usually at Guadalupe’s house, where they dined on pozole and tamales, played games with their children and did a little karaoke.
“On these dates, we were always planning — what were we going to do for Christmas? What plans? What gifts? ‘What do you want? I’m going to give you a gift card so you can buy yourself something you like,’” Hernandez said.
Her days are now punctuated by profound sadness, what she called a “pesadez,” a heaviness.
“I’m carrying a big boulder,” Hernandez said. “It’s going to be very difficult.”
Devastation ‘like nothing in the past’
Unemployment jumped overnight in Erwin, said Unicoi County Mayor Garland “Bubba” Evely. Hundreds of jobs were affected by the loss of the industrial park businesses and the closing of the hospital, which was also flooded. Some people have since found other employment or, in the case of the hospital, have shifted to other facilities, including a 24/7 urgent care in Erwin.
Lee Brown, Erwin Utilities CEO and Unicoi County economic development chairman, said unemployment rose from 4.3% in September to 5.6% in October.
In the utilities’ electric service area, which includes Erwin and part of Unicoi County, and , officials counted 145 damaged homes: 80 of them destroyed, about 40 with major damage and 25 with minor damage.
They also estimated 31 businesses and industries were affected, with about 11 destroyed, 14 with “major, major, major damage,” according to Brown, and six with minor damage.
“It’s hard to really have a tremendous amount of joy in your conversations when you think of all the community lost and those people who lost everything,” Brown said.
Heathur Sawyer, owner of an Erwin tattoo studio, said she lost $17,000 in business in the first month after the flood.
“Economically, our area has been hit like nothing in the past ever before,” Sawyer said.
Her father was fortunately not home when the swollen Nolichucky swamped his house and destroyed everything in it. Her stepfather, an Impact Plastics engineer, was able to get safely out of the plastics plant with the help of his friend Johnny Peterson one of the employees who died in the flood.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigations confirmed to NBC News on Dec. 11 that it’s continuing to look into what happened at Impact Plastics, and, specifically, “to identify any potential criminal violations.”
The Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration (TOSHA) is also conducting its own investigation of the circumstances of the deaths of Impact Plastics workers. A TOSHA spokesperson also said a fatality investigation typically can take six to eight months and will include whether Impact Plastics was required to have an emergency action plan.
‘Trying to rebuild on our own’
J.P. Metcalf, a part owner of Plastiexports, a plastics injection molding business in the industrial park, is trying to reopen and save local manufacturing jobs. He’s worked at the plant, which has changed owners several times, since he was 15, he said. The town has already lost manufacturing jobs over the years and, when it was going to lose Plastiexports, too — the plant’s parent company is now based in Mexico — Metcalf rounded up investors to keep the plant and jobs in town.
Metcalf is taking this latest threat head on, but the challenge is mighty, he said.
“We had a lot of equipment completely destroyed. It was pretty much a total, total loss, to be quite honest,” Metcalf said.
