TBI no longer lists active missing person leads from Helene, but three have not been found

Tyler Whetstone, Knoxville News Sentinel
Updated ·2 min read
Francesco Guerrero holds a photograph of his wife, Rosa Maria Andrade Reynoso, on Sept. 29. The Impact Plastics worker is missing in the Hurricane Helene floods.

For the first time since the day after the remnants of Hurricane Helene tore through East Tennessee, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has reported there are no active leads on missing people.

But that doesn’t mean everyone is accounted for.

"The numbers provided in TEMA’s flash reports did not represent the total number of missing individuals,” TBI spokesperson Leslie Earhart told Knox News in an email. “Those numbers represented public leads that still need to be cleared."

The actual number of people who remain missing can only be found by contacting local sheriff’s offices, Earhart said.

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How many people in Tennessee have died or are still missing?

As of Oct. 21, the date of the Helene last flash report published by the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, the state identified 17 deaths from the storms.

The agency will not release the names, ages or hometowns of those who died, though some individual community leaders shared the news as they mourned in the days after the storm.

Here are the Tennessee death and missing totals, according to TEMA:

Deaths

  • Cocke County: 2

  • Greene County: 1

  • Knox County: 1

  • Johnson County: 1

  • Unicoi County: 8

  • Washington County: 4

Missing

County sheriff's or local leaders confirmed the following missing people:

  • Unicoi County: 1. The body of Rosa Maria Andrade Reynoso, an employee at Impact Plastics in Erwin, has not been found as of Oct. 22, according to the Tennessee Immigrants and Refugees Rights Coalition, who is in contact with her family.

  • Washington County: 2. The Washington County Sheriff's Office confirmed in a message two people are missing: Steven Cloyd and Nancy Tucker.

Counties where residents have been accounted for:

  • Carter County: Carter County Mayor Patty Woodby confirmed there are no missing people.

  • Cocke County: Cocke County Sheriff CJ Ball confirmed there are no missing people.

  • Greene County: Greene County Sheriff Wesley Holt conformed there are no missing people.

  • Hamblen County: Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Bob Ellis confirmed there are no missing people.

  • Knox County: Knox County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Kimberly Glenn confirmed there are no missing people.

  • Johnson County: Johnson County Mayor Larry Potter confirmed there are no missing people.

  • Sevier County: Sevier County Sheriff Michael Hodges confirmed there are no missing people.

How many missing person leads were there?

The number of reports on missing people was as high as 153 people on Sept. 29. Initially, search efforts were hampered by lack of cell phone service and blocked roadways.

Beginning Oct. 12, the number was one and it remained that way until the state released their most recent report of need-to-know information Oct. 21, when it was reported there were no more active leads.

Tyler Whetstone is an investigative reporter focused on accountability journalism. Connect with Tyler by emailing him at tyler.whetstone@knoxnews.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @tyler_whetstone.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tennessee has no Helene missing person leads, but 3 have not been found