NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV/Gray News) – Text messages between an Impact Plastics supervisor and his daughter show workers were still at the factory long after flood warnings were issued. A lawsuit has now been filed on behalf of Johnny Peterson’s family.
According to their attorneys, Peterson is one of six Impact Plastics employees killed after flooding from Hurricane Helene hit the factory. Texts between him and his daughter that morning detail the final moments before he was swept away.
Peterson texted a video of the flooded parking lot to his daughter Alexa. It was taken at 10:44 a.m. on Friday, September 27. That’s an hour and a half after the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for the area, instructing people to move to higher ground immediately. “He said at that point, they better shut the plant down, but they had not,” Alexa said.
Then, Peterson texted her a photo of the flooded breakroom inside the facility. Subsequent texts from him said:
“Can’t get out.”
“It’s bad Lexie.”
“I love u allllll.”
Alexa asked her dad to answer her calls. In his last text to her at 1:30 p.m., he responded, “I can’t.”
“The whole thing feels like a fever dream,” Alexa said. “It doesn’t feel like he is actually dead. It doesn’t feel like this flood actually hit.”
Alexa wants to know why senior management allegedly did not let workers leave at the first signs of trouble. A new lawsuit filed this week alleges that it all came down to business. “We understand from witnesses that the company was behind on some of its orders,” attorney Alex Little, who is representing the family, said. “It had parts it had to get out the door that they were behind on.”
Little claims Impact Plastics and its owner, Gerald O’Connor, put lives in danger to meet deadlines. Little also alleges despite Impact Plastics being in a flood plain, there was no evacuation plan in place.
“If you can’t keep your workers safe in the middle of a disaster, no matter how big that company is, you don’t have business running a factory like that,” Little said.
WSMV4 Investigates also obtained screenshots of emails from members of management from that week. One email was sent two days before the flooding on Wednesday, September 25. It was from the CFO of Impact Plastics, Susan Chambers. It instructed employees to turn off their computers when they left Friday since “the power will be down over the weekend.” Little believes that shows the company was aware of the impending severe weather. Little said management instructed workers to come in Friday anyway, and management allegedly did not let them leave in enough time to escape the flooding.
The lawsuit alleges that workers asked on multiple occasions to leave throughout the morning, but they were not permitted to do so.
“By 11:35 a.m., with his employees trapped and fearing for their lives, Defendant O’Connor and other senior management had stealthily exited the building out of the back door after securing some business documents from their own private offices,” the lawsuit said.
A screenshot of a second email we obtained was sent at 9:28 a.m. the day of the flood to reschedule a meeting to 1 p.m. that day. The email was sent 14 minutes after the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for the area. The lawsuit alleges senior management, including O’Connor, was aware of the alerts but did not evacuate employees.
“The expectation was that everyone would still be at work come that time [1 p.m.],” the lawsuit said.
“The anger I have… There is not a lot of room for grief,” Alexa said. “I have a feeling that will come later.”
WSMV4 reached out to the attorneys representing both Impact Plastics and O’Connor. We have not received a response.
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