'Help us find them': Vigils, prayers for 6 workers swept away by Helene as Tennessee investigates company | CBC News Loaded
Most nights, prayers in Spanish are spoken over rosary beads: "Mary, mother of Jesus, intercede and help us find them." "We ask: Why? Why did she go to work? Why did she stay?" Hernandez's sister, Guadalupe Hernandez-Corona, said through a translator after a Thursday night vigil. "We're all still wondering."Impact Plastics president Gerald 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.
Emergency dispatchers said resources were spread thin as a rescue operation was underway over a mile downriver at Unicoi County Hospital. Alma Vazquez, a Catholic Charities case manager who met some of the lost workers decades ago after she first made her home in Erwin at a migrant farm camp, said the deaths were "completely preventable."Anabel Andrade speaks about the loss of life at Impact Plastics as a result of flooding during Hurricane Helene in Erwin on Friday. Andrade's cousin's daughter Rosy Reynoso is one of six workers still missing.
The most recent arrival to Erwin, eight years ago, was 29-year-old Rosy Reynoso. She and her husband had just moved into their own apartment after living with her mother, whom she still visited daily. Her 10-year-old son is in Mexico and she was working to bring him here, Andrade said.