KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The mission to find the last missing employee of Impact Plastics continued Friday evening after historic and deadly flooding swept through Unicoi County from Hurricane Helene.
"This is the biggest search effort Unicoi County has ever seen in its existence," said William Edwards, the chief of the Unicoi County Search and Rescue team. "We give our deepest condolences to anybody who has lost family in this."
He said his team had recovered five bodies over the last two weeks and was still searching for the last employee. All of the bodies were employees of Impact Plastics. Rosa Andrade is the final employee missing in the county. She is 29 years old and is from Mexico, with two children.
Her husband, Francisco Javier Guerrero, said he last heard from her when she was inside the Impact Plastics factory.
As days turned into weeks, Edwards said the biggest challenge in finding Rosa is combing through piles of debris. He said they can be up to 30 feet deep.
He also said first responders struggle to remove the debris by hand and have used special equipment to help them dig through the piles of debris. He said his team will continue to search for the last missing person.
"This is such a widespread disaster that equipment is thin," he said. "That's our goal, is to recover everybody and we will do everything in our power to do that."
Operations have lasted at least 14 days since Hurricane Helene brought devastating and deadly flooding to Unicoi County. Edwards said they would continue until Rosa was found.