ERWIN, Tenn. (WJHL) — On Sept. 27, 2024, Sibrina Barnett, Monica Hernandez-Corona, Bertha Mendoza, Johnny Peterson, Lidia Verdugo Gastelum, and Rosa Maria Andrade Reynoso all went to work at Impact Plastics in the industrial park in Erwin. Those six employees died in the floods caused by Hurricane Helene.

A year later, Bertha Mendoza’s son, Guillermo, is still trying to make sense of what happened to his mom.

“In the morning, my mother calls me and she says, ‘Hey, son, how are you?’ And I told her I’m doing well. And she said, ‘Oh, good. Did you go to work?’ I said, “No, classes were canceled and the college was closed,'” Mendoza recalled. “She said, ‘Okay, well, they asked us to move the cars up from the parking area, it’s starting to rain really bad.'”

Bertha told her son not to leave and not to take her grandkids out. He told her he wasn’t planning on leaving as he was cleaning up some water that had flooded his basement.

“She said, ‘Okay, son, I love you. I’ll talk to you later,'” said Mendoza. “And that was my last call with my mother.”

Later that morning, the Nolichucky engulfed I-26. Guillermo’s siblings called to let him know their mom was trapped, and he headed straight toward the industrial park.

“When I got there, I could not believe what I was seeing. They call it a river, but that was a monster. I’ve never seen anything like that. I mean, it was even loud just to be near it,” he said. “The current was so strong that the [search and rescue] boat couldn’t move up the water to try to get to them. So seeing that, you know, I was very worried… I started seeing some helicopters, and [the search crews] said, ‘Hey, we got some people stuck in the hospital, and now we don’t think that building is going to hold. So as soon as we get done rescuing the hospital, people, we’re going to start rescuing the other people.”

Several of those stranded were able to seek refuge on a flatbed trailer, including Bertha.

“The flatbed, I guess, turned over, and some of them were able to grab on to these plastic pipes. I’m not sure how to really describe them, but there were coiled yellow pipes. They were able to hold on to some of them,” he said. “And then there’s some people that drifted down and, into this, like, debris island is essentially what it was that got caught between trees, and there’s a group of ’em there.”

Bertha’s sister, Aracelia, also worked at Impact Plastics.

“They were both together in the flatbed. And, she got to kiss my mother goodbye,” he said. “She was telling me, ‘I am so sorry I lost your mom. I don’t know what to do. I lost your mom.’ Her hands were all bloodied up where she was essentially grabbing onto the strap, the plastic strap that was holding the coils.”

As search efforts ramped up, so did the conversations about what happened that morning.

“I went and asked one of the higher-ups if we could leave, and they told us not to leave, that they had to go make sure that it was okay for us to leave with another higher up,” Impact Plastics employee Jacob Ingram told News Channel 11 on Oct. 2, 2024. “And I mean, like we should’ve left.”

Bertha’s body was found two days later, in the area her sister last saw her, on the other side of the interstate.

Almost a week after the flood, on Oct. 3, 2024, Impact Plastics’ Founder and CEO, Gerald O’Connor, released a video. It’s the only time he’s spoken on camera about the incident.

“Employees were told to leave the plant at least 45 minutes before the gigantic force of the flood hit the industrial park. There was time to escape,” O’Connor said in part. “To our knowledge, no one perished while on company property. My company will cooperate fully with the inquiries from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Tennessee Occupational and Health Administration in the days ahead.”

TOSHA didn’t issue any citations to the company and said the employees had enough time to safely leave the plant and that their deaths weren’t work-related.

The TBI also cleared management of any criminal wrongdoing, and no charges were filed.

Some of the families filed wrongful death lawsuits. Several survivors also sued the company. Their lawyers declined to comment. Gerald O’Connor’s attorneys also denied our requests for an interview for this story.

“We’re in a better place as a family. I think we’ve come to terms with what’s happened after lots of prayer, after lots of support. Job 1:21 says, ‘The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, and blessed be the name of the Lord,'” Mendoza said. “She was just a wonderful wife, wonderful grandmother, wonderful sister, wonderful aunt. And I had the privilege to call her ‘mom.'”