Four of those missing from Impact Plastics in Unicoi County come from a tight-knit Mexican community. The families say they were told four bodies have been recovered and they’re waiting to hear who they are.
For Guadalupe Hernández she says her sister Monica Hernández went to work on Friday morning as usual. She then received a call from Monica at about 10:30 a.m. saying she was in the factory and it was starting to flood.
During the call, she said goodbye to her children in case she couldn’t be saved.
“The water started to get in, the only thing she told me was she was standing on top of her van and then she had to get on top of a trailer. That’s the last thing she told me,” Hernández said in translation.
Monica was working with Rosa Maria Andrade who is also missing. Her brother-in-law says there was a group of them waiting for rescue.
At the time Unicoi County said they had limited resources and were being overrun with emergency calls.
“We believe the rescue teams were more focused on the hospital that was nearby. They did try to rescue the group where she was, but only two were saved,” Javier Ibáñez said.
Now there has been no sign of these women since Friday.
“All of the families have been looking for them. We could not find them. We checked the two big hospitals in Johnson City and they didn’t have any answers for us,” Hernández said.
They were told by police it would take three to four days to identify the bodies they’d found using dental records. The families say they will wait in there until they learn more.
If you are looking for a loved one in the East Tennessee region, you can call 1-800-tbi-find to help find where your ones are.
