Knox News: Impact Plastics didn't allow cell phones in the plant. Did that factor into employees staying?

[Dennis Donovan]

(Note: The Knoxville News Sentinel - Knox News - has a hard paywall so everything is linked to archive.today)

Knox News - Impact Plastics didn't allow cell phones in the plant. Did that factor into employees staying?

Tyler Whetstone
Knoxville News Sentinel
Published 5:01 a.m. ET Dec. 10, 2024Updated 5:01 a.m. ET Dec. 10, 2024



/snip

As employees at Impact Plastics continued to work even as Hurricane Helene floodwaters rose toward the plant, they had little knowledge of the dire scene unfolding outside.

The Nolichucky River was overrunning its banks and cutting off the only road out of the Riverview Industrial Park, and the National Weather Service was raising the alarm with urgent instructions to evacuate.

Impact Plastics employees, though, didn't see the warnings that were sent as early as 9:20 a.m.

The workers were not allowed to have their cell phones out and could be punished if managers saw them, Knox News has confirmed. Without access to warnings pushed to phones, and without sight of what was happening outside the windowless production space, employees were in the dark about the impending danger.

/snip/

Ultimately, tragedy struck the plant. Six employees died after taking refuge on the back of a semitruck trailer from PolyPipe USA next door. The truck was inundated with water and eventually flipped, sweeping away the employees.

/snip

It reminds me of the workers in WTC2 on 9/11 - some told not to leave until it was too late.