Death Toll of Workers Killed Due to Hurricane Helene Grows as Fla. Employers Brace for Milton

Tampa, FL (WorkersCompensation.com) – As businesses and first responders prepare the west coast of Florida for Hurricane Milton, the list of employees killed while working during Hurricane Helene continues to grow.

A little over two weeks ago, Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida before making its way up the southeast and pummeling Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia with rain. Some areas of the Blue Ridge Mountains in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina received nearly 30 inches of rain, causing widespread flooding, mud and rock slides. Power to thousands of residents in North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee is still out, and officials are struggling in some areas to make roads passable again. More than 230 people have died as a result of the storm, and in some states rescue efforts are ongoing.

Officials have identified a number of people who died while working during the storm – several of them first responders who perished trying to help others

In eastern South Carolina, two firefighters were killed when their firetruck was struck by a falling tree. Officials in Saluda County said veteran South Carolina fire chief Chad Satcher, 53, and firefighter Landon Cale Bodie, 19, with the Circle Fire Department were responding to one of the calls for service during the storm. Satcher had been with the department for 35 years, officials said, while Bodie had just graduated from Blythewood High School and was a volunteer with the department.

Jamie Helms, South Carolina State Firefighters Association executive director, said the two men should be honored for their service.

“This is an impactful thing anytime you have a line of duty death whether it’s law enforcement, EMS, fire, it doesn’t matter,” Helms said. “But we are honored and glad we have the opportunity to be here and support this family, this fire department, this county, and this community. It’s also supporting our other brothers and sisters across the state as well, it’s giving them an opportunity to have their time to grieve.”

In North Carolina, a sheriff’s deputy who ran a county jail died in the floodwaters.

Sheriff’s Capt. Michelle Quintero ran the Madison County jail and died while driving to work. Officials said she was driving to the jail on Sunday night when a dam broke and she was caught in the floodwaters.

Quintero, 48, knew she might have to “give it all” for her job, her brother, Sheriff’s Deputy Chief Coy Phillips said.

“From the juveniles we house to the most hardcore inmate we had, everybody loved her. She was one of those people who treated everybody right. She treated everybody fair,” Phillips said. “It didn’t matter who or what you were, she took care of everybody.”

As previously reported in WorkersCompensation.com, another North Carolina deputy was swept away on his lunch break. Officials with the Macon County Sheriff’s Office said they received a call just before noon on Friday about a truck sinking in the river with someone trapped inside, officials said. Around the same time, the sheriff’s office noted that the truck matched the description of Sheriff’s Deputy Jim Lau and that Lau had not returned from lunch.

Rescue workers searched on foot and with drones, and several swift-water rescue teams were called off but the search was called off when the sun set that day. Officials said Lau’s body was found shortly after the search resumed the next morning.

“Jim was very liked and respected within our department,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “He was known to be a hard worker, dependable, and he jumped in wherever help was needed.”

And in Georgia, an assistant fire chief was killed by a tree that fell on a truck.

Officials in Blackshear, Georgia said Chief Vernon “Leon” Davis, a 35-year veteran of the fire department, died responding to the storm. He was 69, officials said.

“Chief Davis is a hero who devoted his life to serving his fellow Georgians,” Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said on social media.

In Tennessee, officials said five of the six workers who disappeared while clinging to a truck in Erwin, have been identified. On Tuesday, officials identified Sabrina Barnett as the fifth Impact Plastics employee who had been confirmed as dead following the incident. Four others, Bertha Mendoza, Monica Hernandez, Lidia Verdugo and Johnny Peterson, were also confirmed dead by Unicoi County Emergency Management Director Jimmy Erwin on Monday. One other employee, Rosa Maria Andrade Reynoso, remains missing.

Only 15 people have been killed in Tennessee because of Hurricane Helene. Five were from Impact Plastics, and another two were in Unicoi County. Federal officials have said they are looking into claims that the company told employees they couldn’t leave work until it was too late to get to safety.

Along the west coast of Florida, officials are already staging search and rescue operators, as well as other support personnel as Milton nears the coast. On Tuesday night, the National Hurricane Center said the Category 4 storm was headed directly for Tampa with winds between 120 and 150 miles per hour and a predicted 10 to 15 feet of storm surge. Officials said they are preparing for an emergency while cleaning up from Helene.

“I know that our residents, our staff, everyone is absolutely, purely exhausted from the recovery effort for Hurricane Helene, but we do need to start preparing for another potential serious hit from another hurricane,” Treasure Island Mayor Tyler Payne said in a video message on Monday. “And you’re still trying to recover from that, and now we have to go through it all over again. But it is absolutely critical that you obey the evacuation orders when they are issued and really protect yourself at this point.”

Officials have called the likely storm surge “unsurvivable.”

“This isn’t water that rises slowly. This is fast-moving water with waves like a battering ram,” former Federal Emergency Management Director Craig Fugate, who lives in Florida and previously ran the state’s emergency management division, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “You don’t want to be in that area. That’s how we lost a lot of lives in all those surge areas where people didn't get out then either drowned or were crushed by their houses collapsing on them.”

Fugate said the debris already cleaned up from the previous storm could add to the destruction.

“I have the feeling everything that is still standing will become debris and you won’t be able to distinguish it,” he said. “If you’ve got enough water to move that stuff around, it’s going to be moving houses, cars and other things as well.’

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