Wrongful Death Suit Filed by Daughter of Tennessee Employee Killed in Hurricane Helene Flood

Destruction near Mill Creek toward downtown is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Old Fort, North Carolina, on Sept. 30, 2024. Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images

The daughter of an employee who was killed by Hurricane Helene’s destructive flooding has filed a wrongful death suit against a Tennessee company for allegedly refusing to allow its workers to leave the area despite the growing danger from the weather conditions.

According to the complaint, Gerald O’Connor, owner of the Erwin, Tennessee-based Impact Plastics, wouldn’t let his employees evacuate when the flooding began.

Johnny Peterson, the plaintiff’s father, was among the Impact Plastics employees who died on Sept. 27.

His oldest daughter, Alexa Peterson, had one of her last communications with her father when at 1:17 p.m. he texted, “I love you allllll,” from the bed of an 18-wheeler where he and others had retreated.

“Today, we are filing a lawsuit on behalf of Johnny’s family,” Alex Little, managing member of the Nashville-based law firm Litson PLLC, said in an Oct. 14 statement.

“Based on information we’ve uncovered, including accounts from surviving employees, we believe this tragedy could have been avoided. Impact Plastics was aware of the flood risks, and while employees requested permission to leave, the company failed to act.”

The complaint alleges that the company “had no emergency plan” despite the factory being located in a Federal Emergency Management Agency-designated flood zone.

Import Plastics chose to remain open on Sept. 27 because, according to the complaint, it “wanted to meet order deadlines,” despite surrounding business and school closures.

“It was not long before the emergency alerts began ringing on cell phones throughout the factory floor and in the adjacent office where company officers worked,” the complaint reads.

By 9:14 a.m., almost two hours after employees started work, the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning urging people to seek high ground, but senior management at Impact Plastics took no action, according to the complaint.

“Multiple Impact Plastics employees were greatly distressed that they were not allowed to leave and that there was no plan for the dangerously developing weather,” the complaint reads. “They asked whether they could leave, and they were not given permission to do so.”

At 10 a.m., employees were instructed to move their cars because of the flooding parking lot, the complaint states. By then, many of the cars were already submerged.

At 10:30 a.m., the building lost power.

Still, company officials “failed to release employees from work,” the complaint states.

Eventually, the employees were allowed to leave, according to the complaint, but by then it was too late. The building was flooded and some of the employees retreated to the 18-wheeler where Alexa Peterson last heard from her father.

Peterson’s Last Text

The last text Johnny Peterson sent out was to his father, who had asked if he was OK.

“Not for Long,” Johnny Peterson wrote at 1:27 p.m.

“This was the last text Johnny sent to anyone,” the complaint reads.

His body was later recovered by a search-and-rescue team near the property days later.

Six employees were killed in the flood despite O’Connor claiming that “no one perished on company property,” according to the complaint.

On Oct. 3, Tennessee’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (TOSHA) opened an investigation into Impact Plastics “to determine the circumstances that led to the workplace fatalities.”

At the time of its statement, TOSHA said it had not received a fatality report from Impact Plastics management.

It noted that an investigation can take “up to six months to complete.”

Impact Plastics did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.