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Mitchell County’s miners and farmers struggling in the aftermath of Helene [Video]
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Small Business Marketing

Mitchell County’s miners and farmers struggling in the aftermath of Helene [Video]

EXTRAORDINARY. WELL, IN MITCHELL COUNTY, THINGS ARE SO BAD THAT PEOPLE THERE ARE THRILLED THAT THE SHELTER AT THE LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL IS ABOUT TO GET SOLAR POWERED SHOWERS. PEOPLE THERE ARE REALLY STRUGGLING, AND THE ANIMALS ARE AS WELL. ABOUT 15,000 PEOPLE LIVE IN MITCHELL COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA BY POPULATION. ITS ONE OF THE SMALLEST COUNTIES IN THE ENTIRE STATE. BUT IN THE AFTERMATH OF HELENE, THESE FOLKS ARE HURTING JUST AS MUCH AS EVERYONE ELSE. JUST MAKING SURE THAT WE CAN GET OUR CITIZENS THAT HAVE LOST NOT ONLY THEIR HOMES, BUT THEIR JOBS. SO YOU KNOW, ITS JUST I DONT KNOW WHAT WE CAN DO, BUT WERE JUST TAKING IT ONE DAY AT A TIME. COUNTY COMMISSION CHAIR HARLEY MASTERS SAYS TRANSPORTATION HAS IMPROVED SOME SINCE FRIDAY, BUT THERE ARE STILL PLACES THAT ARE INACCESSIBLE BY CAR OR TRUCK, AND THIS IS A CRITICAL PART OF THE COUNTRY FOR TECHNOLOGY. MITCHELL COUNTY IS SMALL, BUT WE DO HAVE THE HIGHEST PURITY COURTS IN THE WORLD HERE, AND SO FROM, YOU KNOW, THE UNITED STATES STANDPOINT, ITS VERY IMPORTANT. IT GOES INTO YOUR CELL PHONE, MY CELL PHONE. IT GOES INTO VEHICLES. SO YOU KNOW, ITS KIND OF A BIG DEAL. AND SO WERE JUST GOING TO TRY TO WORK AND GET EVERYTHING UP AND GOING SO THAT WE DONT HAVE A DELAY IN ANYTHING. OTHERS HERE MAKE THEIR LIVING FROM AGRICULTURE. EMILY YOUNG OWNS HAPPY HANDS AND HIGHLANDS FARM IN THE TOWN OF BURNSVILLE, WHICH IS ABOUT 25 MILES SOUTHEAST OF THE TENNESSEE BORDER. SHE HAS ABOUT 400,000 FOLLOWERS BETWEEN INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK, AND HAS BEEN USING HER SOCIAL MEDIA REACH TO MAKE PEOPLE AWARE OF THIS SMALL TOWNS EXTRAORDINARY NEEDS, LIKE TEMPORARY FENCING. ANIMALS ARE DYING, AND YOU KNOW, IN HUMAN LIFE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT NEED. BUT YOU KNOW, IM GOOD WITH COWS. THATS THE ONLY THING I THINK I HAVE A TALENT WITH IS POSTING ON THE INTERNET AND TALKING ABOUT COWS. SO I THINK THATS ONE THING I CAN DO TO HELP. BUT THIS IS THEIR LIVELIHOOD. YOU KNOW, WE HAVE SEVERAL FARMERS UP HERE IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA. SO THATS A LOT OF THATS OUR LIVELIHOODS. WE FARM AND YOU KNOW, WE WE CANT FORGET THAT. BOTH HARLEY AND EMILY SAY THEYRE BEGINNING TO SEE SOME HELP FROM THE LOCAL, STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. BUT A LOT OF THE ASSISTANCE IN THE EARLY STAGES HAS COME AT THE GRASSROOTS LEVEL. EMILY STARTED A GOFUNDME WHERE PEOPLE CAN DONATE, AND THEN SHE TAKES THE MONEY AND GIVES IT TO PEOPLE WHO ARE ABLE TO GET OUT OF TOWN TO BUY SUPPLIES AND THEN BRING IT BACK. WEVE LINKED TO THAT GOFUND

Some workers still missing after flooding at Tennessee plastics plant [Video]
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Small Business Marketing

Some workers still missing after flooding at Tennessee plastics plant [Video]

As the rain from Hurricane Helene came down harder and harder, workers inside a plastics factory in rural Tennessee kept working. It wasn’t until water flooded into the parking lot and the power went out that the plant shut down and sent workers home.Several never made it. Video above: families desperate for answers about missing family membersThe raging floodwaters swept 11 people away, and only five were rescued. Two of them are confirmed dead and part of the death toll across the affected states that passed 150 Tuesday. Four others are still unaccounted for since they were washed away Friday in the small town of Erwin, Tennessee, where dozens of people were rescued off the roof of a hospital.Video below: Drone footage shows flooding in Erwin, TennesseeSome workers managed to drive away from the plant, while others got caught on a clogged road where water rose enough to sweep vehicles away. Videos show the brown floodwaters from the adjacent Nolichucky River covering the nearby highway and lapping at the doors of Impact Plastics.Jacob Ingram, a mold changer at the plastics factory, filmed himself and four others waiting for rescue as bobbing vehicles floated by. He later posted the videos on Facebook with the caption, “Just wanna say im lucky to be alive.” Videos of the helicopter rescue were posted on social media later on Saturday. In one video, Ingram can be seen looking down at the camera, a green Tennessee National Guard helicopter hovering above him, hoisting one of the other survivors. In another, a soldier can be seen rigging the next evacuee in a harness.Impact Plastics said in a statement Monday it “continued to monitor weather conditions” on Friday and that managers dismissed employees “when water began to cover the parking lot and the adjacent service road, and the plant lost power.”In interviews with local news outlets, two of the workers who made it out of the facility disputed those claims. One told News 5 WCYB that employees were made to wait until it was “too late.” Another, Ingram, made a similar statement to the Knoxville News Sentinel.”They should’ve evacuated when we got the flash flood warnings, and when they saw the parking lot,” Ingram said. “We asked them if we should evacuate, and they told us not yet, it wasn’t bad enough.”Worker Robert Jarvis told News 5 WCYB that the company should have let them leave earlier.Jarvis said he tried to drive away in his car, but the water on the main road got too high, and only off-road vehicles were finding ways out of the flood zone.”The water was coming up,” he said. “A guy in a 4×4 came, picked a bunch of us up and saved our lives, or we’d have been dead, too.”The 11 workers found temporary respite on the back of a truck driven by a passerby, but it soon tipped over after debris hit it, Ingram said.Ingram said he survived by grabbing onto plastic pipes that were on the truck. He said he and four others floated for about half a mile (about 800 meters) before they found safety on a sturdy pile of debris. Impact Plastic said Tuesday it didn’t have any updates.”We are devastated by the tragic loss of great employees,” company founder Gerald O’Connor said in the statement Monday. “Those who are missing or deceased, and their families are in our thoughts and prayers.”Hurricane Helene’s death toll increased Tuesday as searches in multiple states continued. Survivors were looking for shelter and struggling to find running water, electricity and food. Others in the region are bracing for barriers to voting.The two confirmed dead at the Tennessee plastics factory are Mexican citizens, said Lisa Sherman-Nikolaus, executive director at Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. She said many of the victims’ families have started online fundraisers to cover funeral costs and other expenses. Bertha Mendoza was with her sister when the flooding started, but they got separated, according to a eulogy on her GoFundMe page authored by her daughter-in-law, who declined an interview request.”She was loved dearly by her family, community, her church family, and co-workers,” the eulogy read.___AP journalists Rhonda Shafner and Beatrice Dupuy contributed from New York.