It's not about locked or unlocked. Pulling the handle is supposed to open the door. Locking prevents that. In this case, the handle doesn't mechanically unlatch the door, it does so electronically. With no power it is not possible for it to unlatch. Since locking is then a software feature, we might say those doors are locked by default and require software and electronics to make them open. Because of that there is a mechanical thing you can pull, but nobody knows where that is or that it exists unless they are told.
I'm talking more generally about cars not always unlocking after an accident.
In this specific scenario, you still have a component failure. Something that was supposed to be connected wasn't. It would be nice if they designed a better fail safe but it's not a case of "corvette handles aren't designed to unlock."
