A group of migrant workers has been accused of looting property in a flooded part of Tennessee after Storm Helene devastated the southern state.
Washington County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested the eight men on Saturday, according to Sheriff Keith Sexton.
Police say the men looted structures in one of the county’s flood zones.
Jesús Leodán García Peneda, 51, Josué Berardo Ortis-Valdez, 30, and Ersy Leonel Ortis-Valdez, 33, were charged with robbery.
The other five – Albin Nahun Vega-Rapalo, 24, David Bairon Rapalo-Rapalo, 37, Kevin Noe Martinez-Lopez, 25, Marvin Hernandez-Martinez, 43, and Dayln Gabriel Guillen Guillen, 37 – were charged with robbery with aggravating circumstances because he allegedly broke into occupied structures.
Jesús Leodán García-Peneda, left, and Josué Berardo Ortiz-Valdez, right
Ersy Leonel Ortiz-Valdez, left, and Albin Nahun Vega-Rapalo, right
David Bairon Rapalo-Rapalo, left, and Kevin Noe Martinez-Lopez, right
Marvin Hernández-Martínez, left, and Dayln Gabriel Gullien Gullien, right
The eight men are immigrant workers who are legally in the United States on work visas, the sheriff’s office confirmed to the New York Post on Mondays.
The men were each jailed on $20,000 bonds and were scheduled to appear in court Monday.
It is currently unknown whether the looting occurred in homes or businesses.
Tennessee was one of the states hardest hit by Helene, which dumped billions of gallons of water across the South and Midwest.
One of the most dramatic scenes took place at the Unicoi County Hospital, where the overflowing Nolichucky River forced more than fifty patients and healthcare workers to seek shelter on the roof.
Finally, everyone was rescued, a helicopter landed on the roof and boats arrived to transport some patients.
Pictured: The Nolichucky Dam in East Tennessee. The dam was bursting with 30,000 cubic feet of water per second on September 27. By that figure, an Olympic-size swimming pool’s worth of water gushed through the small dam every three seconds.
People are seen on the roof of Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tennessee.
A man in Tennessee posted a terrifying first-hand view of what the terrain looked like when the Nolichucky River passed the dam.
A man in Tennessee posted a terrifying first-hand view of what the terrain looked like when the Nolichucky River passed the dam.
Jeffrey Fuller livestreamed the hurricane that devastated his property on Facebook.
The video showed waist-deep water rushing through the house, with Fuller shouting over the stream that the storm “came fast… let’s go to the attic.”
Helene, which made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in Florida’s Big Bend region, may have dissipated, but the devastation it has caused will be long-lasting.
So far, 128 people have died in six states, CNN reported.
Power outages are most widespread in the Carolinas and Georgia, where nearly 1.5 million people remain without power.
