Charles H. Sloan-How a long-haul trucker from Texas became a hero amid floods in Tennessee

KNOXVILLE,Charles H. Sloan Tenn. − Texan Michael Dorsey has spent a career crisscrossing the nation as a long-haul truck driver and, like many in his line of work, the places don't register much anymore.

So it was Friday, in Erwin, Tennessee, just another stop in a seemingly unending row of them. Dorsey, 56, was there to pick up a load of yellow flexible gas piping and haul it to Arizona over the weekend.

He never made it out of the parking lot. And before the morning was over, the truck driver from Humble, Texas, became a hero.

Dorsey steered what he counted as 10 employees from the business next door, Impact Plastics, in a frantic climb atop his loaded flatbed semitruck to find temporary refuge from the roaring waters of the flooded Nolichucky River. The usually mild-mannered river had been injected with all the power of a once-in-5,000-years storm, the prodigious rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Helene.

More:Tennessee factory employees clung to semitruck before Helene floodwaters swept them away

The Nolichucky was engorged and seemingly enraged, hurling debris at the terrified group, the employees of Impact Plastics and the long-haul trucker, clinging perilously to the yellow piping.

Once, twice and then a third time debris slammed into the truck, the last time tipping it over and flinging at least five people into the current that swept them away. At least two died. The fates of the three others remain unknown.

Five others, however, survived. And they credit Dorsey for saving their lives.

“I mean, I don’t look at it like I’m no type of hero or nothing,” Dorsey told Knox News, part of the USA TODAY Network, on Tuesday. “Just that God put me in the right place at the right time, I guess. Because if I hadn’t stayed … they would’ve gotten washed away.

"God puts you in situations and you never know what it’s going to be. So, I was just at the right place at the right time.”

More:Miracles in the mud: Heroes, helping hands emerge from Hurricane Helene aftermath

Riverview Industrial Park is fatefully located

Dorsey was hauling the piping for Dura-Line, which does work with PolyPipe USA. The business is situated in the Riverview Industrial Park and sits hundreds of feet from the Nolichucky River, which swelled with a rush of water comparable to nearly twice what cascades over Niagara Falls.

Only a parking lot and two roads separated the businesses from the river.

Two of the women in the group of Impact Plastics employees died, according to an immigrants rights group that has been working with families of some of the employees who worked there. The company confirmed the death of one person but did not give details about their identity.

What happened to the others remains unknown, obscured by a lack of clear communication from state and local leaders and the difficulty local officials have had in tracking down people who are unaccounted for across the region.

Employees of Impact Plastics have alleged, including in interviews with Knox News, that company management wouldn’t let them leave as waters were rising outside. The company, in a statement released Monday, has denied those claims.

Overall, at least eight people have died in East Tennessee in the devastating floods following Hurricane Helene's landfall, according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

Dorsey’s account of the terror on the truck is nearly identical to what Impact Plastics employee Jacob Ingram told Knox News on Monday, though the chaos of the event created slightly different memories for the men: Dorsey counted 11 people on the truck, including himself, while Ingram counted 12; Dorsey said six were rescued while Ingram said there were only five.

Dorsey also said the whole ordeal lasted an hour or so, not the two or three Ingram remembers.

The unfathomable flood bears down

The water in parts of the industrial park in Erwin was already ankle-deep when Dorsey made his way to his red semitruck in the parking lot of PolyPipe USA. He didn’t know it would be the last time he’d drive it.

An employee of PolyPipe told him they heard a dam failed, that he needed to leave. The water looked deep but another semitruck ahead of Dorsey made a go of it and made it out. While he was debating what to do, he said, a woman came up and asked if a group of employees could hang out with him until the water went down. He agreed to stay.

The water went from ankle-deep to a raging current in less than 20 minutes, Dorsey said. He sat with a woman in the cab of his truck, out of the way of the water until it began creeping into the cab. The two were able to get to the trailer.

Soon after, he said, the current pushed the truck and trailer against some trees. The Nolichucky was unrelenting, bending the truck to its will. Eventually, the impact of the debris flung everyone into the water.

“I prayed and everything and believed we were going to make it, but I can’t lie and say I wasn’t afraid because that was a hell of a situation,” he said.

Like Ingram, Dorsey grabbed onto the piping, somehow managing to snag it before floating downstream. Others did the same and the group ultimately came to rest on a pile of debris.

The dead and the missing

Knox News verified at least five of the employees who were on the truck are either confirmed dead or are missing.

One of the employees who died, Bertha Mendoza, 56, fell off the truck and vanished into the flood, according to Ingram and a representative from Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

Mendoza was separated from her sister as the two tried to stay afloat, according to a GoFundMe page dedicated to her. Her body was found Sunday. Mendoza has not been publicly identified by officials.

Monica Hernandez has been confirmed dead, according to the immigrants rights coalition, who said it confirmed her death with her family, who learned of it from the Unicoi County Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday. Hernandez has not been publicly identified by officials.

Rosa Maria Andrade Reynoso, was missing as of Tuesday. Her husband, Francesco Guerro, told Knox News through a translator that she was in communication with him throughout the morning and wasn’t sure if she could get out. She told him to take care of their kids, he said.

Another woman, Lydia Verdugo, has been identified as missing, according to the immigrants rights coalition. She has not been publicly identified by officials.

What’s next for Dorsey?

Unable to drive his truck, Dorsey flew home to Texas, where he’s been looking for work as he waits on insurance payments to reimburse him for his lost truck. He’s the sole provider for his wife and five children, he said. It’s going to take some time.

Whenever the payments come, he’ll use the money to buy a new semitruck.

In the meantime, he can’t stop thinking about the river and the people on his flatbed. He’s thankful for the ones who escaped, but the losses haunt him.

One of the women, Dorsey doesn’t know her name, was afraid throughout the ordeal. He told her repeatedly they would get out of it, that she would make it. He had a hold of her, he said, but he was hit in the head during the rush of the truck tipping over and he couldn't hold on.

“They’re not really nightmares, but when I close my eyes, I keep reliving what happened,” he said. “Because I ended up letting her go and kept telling her before all of that happened, I got her.

"I mean, I didn’t know I was going to get hit upside the head by whatever hit me upside the head, but I just feel bad because I didn’t hold onto her.”

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.