Factory workers in Tennessee were swept away by Helene. Their families say they weren’t allowed to leave work in time to flee

The last time Elías Ibarra Mendoza heard his wife’s voice, she was pleading for his help.

The last time Elías Ibarra Mendoza heard his wife’s voice, she was pleading for his help. “‘Tell my kids that I love them very much and I won’t be able to answer your calls anymore because the phone will get wet,’” Ibarra Mendoza told CNN affiliate Univision of Bertha Mendoza’s last words to him. He never heard from his wife of 38 years again. The 56-year-old grandmother was one of 11 Tennessee plastics plant workers swept away by Hurricane Helene’s deadly floodwaters after they tried to leave the facility. Only five were rescued. Four people who worked at the Impact Plastics plant in Erwin are still missing, and two have been confirmed dead, including Mendoza, the Associated Press reported. Families of the victims and Impact Plastics workers are outraged, demanding answers about why, they say, employees were made to work during extreme weather conditions, and some were told they couldn’t leave as warnings of heavy rainfall in the flood-prone area poured in. Impact Plastics has forcefully denied those claims, saying late Thursday the allegations are false, and no employee was stopped from leaving. Two state investigations are unfolding into the tragedy as employees, victims’ families and company owners offer differing accounts of the hour before floodwaters overtook the area.