Impact Plastics: All about TN company whose workers died in flood

Two weeks after historic flooding overtook Impact Plastics in Erwin, Tennessee, investigations are continuing into the company that was unknown to many until at least five of its employees were killed in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

Employees have said company management would not allow them to leave until it was too late, which thrust the factory on South Industrial Drive into the national news cycle. The company has denied the allegations.

As Knox News continues to report on what happened that day − and with one employee still missing − here are some things to know about the company at the center of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigations.

The factory produces a little bit of everything, but the company website suggests its main line of business is plastic injection molding, which creates custom parts for automobiles, helicopters, cell phone tower components and all sorts of furniture parts, as well as other consumer products like household appliances and office products.

“I’m a converter of raw materials. I convert whatever the plastic material is, into a product,” President and CEO Gerald O’Connor told the Business Journal of the Tri-Cities in 2014. “It does not always have to be polystyrene or propylene, nylon. It could be Eastman’s Tenite. It could be fiberglass, vacuum molding, injection molding. I’m really not an injection molder of a specific type. We convert product, we convert materials.”

The company opened in 1987. The factory sits on South Industrial Drive in Erwin and overlooks James H. Quillen Parkway/Interstate 26, which is closed after floodwaters wiped out the roadway.

Gerald O’Connor is the founder, president and CEO of Impact Plastics. He started the company in 1987 and has led it ever since. In the 2014 profile, he detailed how he began doing plastic molding on the side, renting time on other manufacturers’ machines to fill orders before eventually getting enough loans to start the business.

O’Connor released a statement Sept. 30 that said he was “devastated by the tragic loss of great employees” and denied allegations that employees were told they would be fired if they left.

On Oct. 3, O’Connor released a video statement, which he said was for his own safety and to not strain law enforcement resources due to death threats he has received. He also released the company’s preliminary internal review of what happened Sept. 27 and stood by previous statements about when employees were allowed to leave.

“There was time to escape,” he said in the video. “Employees were not told at any time that they would be fired if they left the plant. After checking to make sure everyone was out of our plant and to rescue important files, I was one of the last people to leave the plant and luckily escaped."

“To our knowledge, no one perished while on company property,” he added.

At least five Impact Plastics employees died in this incident, and their names have been confirmed by Knox News: Sibrina Barnett, Monica Hernandez, Bertha Mendoza, Johnny Peterson and Lidia Verdugo.

Unicoi County Emergency Management Director Jimmy Erwin said Oct. 7 that one employee remained missing.

The missing worker has been identified by the Tennessee Immigrants and Refugees Rights Coalition as Rosa Maria Andrade Reynoso.

Tyler Whetstone is an investigative reporter focused on accountability journalism. Connect with Tyler by emailing him at [email protected]. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @tyler_whetstone.