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Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

reuters.com

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Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#131

Post by throwaway0a5e »

AlbertCory wrote: post #122
gerdesj wrote: post #70

"Six Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) workers were confirmed dead on Saturday after a series of tornadoes roared through a warehouse near St Louis, ripping off its roof and causing 11-inch thick concrete walls longer than football fields to collapse on themselves." Horrific. A wall that size cannot possibly survive a big wind. Cannot.

Question: what was the peak wind speed? Is it more than a hurricane's, or less? The next question is: do they have stricter building codes in Florida, such that this storm wouldn't have knocked down warehouses?

> Question: what was the peak wind speed? Is it more than a hurricane's, or less?

More, a lot more, to the point where any building code that saves you would just make it not economical to build anything

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#132

Post by wsh »

dylan604 wrote: post #95
sillysaurusx wrote: post #3

I slept through three tornado sirens last night. It was pretty wild. The first one, I thought it was a test. (We have tests every month on the 1st.) But it wasn't until a few minutes in that I realized it was for real. Then apparently I just... went to sleep? That wasn't the smartest decision I've ever made. It went off a couple more times. One strange thing was the realization that I had no idea where to turn for in…

>The fall of TV You mean in your daily in-take of media? Local TV stations are required to broadcast weather. It's actually part of their licensing. So if you're not in the habit of turning on the local station because of crappy programming (like me), then you should at least be willing to find a local station during weather. Even if regular programming is on, they will break in when requested by the NWS. Local radio…

> Local TV stations are required to broadcast weather.

Television stations in the U.S. are required, in a broad sense, to serve their local communities, and many choose to do so by providing weather forecasts and alerts, but I don’t know of any law or regulation that requires broadcasters to provide weather information, in emergencies or at all.

Stations do have to participate in the Emergency Alert System, but they don’t have to transmit anything other than the required tests and an Emergency Action Notification for a national emergency. (See 47 CFR 11.52(d)(4).)

The better source for tornado and other warnings is NOAA Weather Radio (https://www.weather.gov/nwr/), a network of dedicated FM stations transmitting in the 162 MHz band. Receivers are widely available and can be programmed to turn on only when a warning for a specific area is broadcast.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#133

Post by rectang »

When there are Tornado Warnings in the area, are there any policies at big warehouses like this one (not just Amazon's others too) to take shelter? Is there enough time to get to a reinforced area? How long would staff have to stay in the reinforced area?

Low probability, high consequence events are hard to plan for.

Sad for all those who have died or are suffering in the wake of the storms.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#134

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

themark wrote: post #101
oatz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use your phone as an FM/AM radio receiver. Tune to your local station.

Can you do this on an iPhone? The first time I was in a Tesla, my initial thought was why can’t my phone tune into FM Radio.

First step is to plug in headphones to serve as an antenna. Then you're all set.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#135

Post by thomasfedb »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #3

I slept through three tornado sirens last night. It was pretty wild. The first one, I thought it was a test. (We have tests every month on the 1st.) But it wasn't until a few minutes in that I realized it was for real. Then apparently I just... went to sleep? That wasn't the smartest decision I've ever made. It went off a couple more times. One strange thing was the realization that I had no idea where to turn for in…

One of the many reasons I love the ABC (our national broadcaster in Australia) is that everybody knows that they will have the info you need in an emergency - on TV, radio, online, and social media, round the clock.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#136

Post by Aperocky »

AlbertCory wrote: post #122
gerdesj wrote: post #70

"Six Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) workers were confirmed dead on Saturday after a series of tornadoes roared through a warehouse near St Louis, ripping off its roof and causing 11-inch thick concrete walls longer than football fields to collapse on themselves." Horrific. A wall that size cannot possibly survive a big wind. Cannot.

Question: what was the peak wind speed? Is it more than a hurricane's, or less? The next question is: do they have stricter building codes in Florida, such that this storm wouldn't have knocked down warehouses?

More.

It's much more likely to be hit by a hurricane in Florida? It's also unpractical to build everything to be able to withstand the off chance there's a tornado. You essentially need bunkers.

Better question here is if there are adequate alarm and evacuation plans.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#137

Post by jjtheblunt »

coryrc wrote: post #117
gerdesj wrote: post #70

"Six Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) workers were confirmed dead on Saturday after a series of tornadoes roared through a warehouse near St Louis, ripping off its roof and causing 11-inch thick concrete walls longer than football fields to collapse on themselves." Horrific. A wall that size cannot possibly survive a big wind. Cannot.

Point me to a warehouse currently built in the US that would survive this.

https://www.steelmasterusa.com/quonset-huts/disaster-resista...

In particular, the hundred-ish year old design called a Quonset Hut is partly designed for this wind-deflecting purpose.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#138

Post by TylerE »

StevePerkins wrote: post #30
suqiifkfkg wrote: post #15

Are Amazon workers somehow special that they get upvoted on HN. What a bizarre, bizarre society we're living in.

There are five sure paths to the HN front page: 1. Material about Big Tech being evil. 2. Material about how to get hired in Big Tech. 3. "_______ written in Rust". 4. Cities good, cars bad, Elon's good. 5. Typography.

Especially egregious in this case... what about the 50+ workers killed a candle factory in the Mayfield EF5?

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#139

Post by Kye »

tylermac1 wrote: post #23
boomboomsubban wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The fall of TV means that in a situation like that, there isn't any "tune to your local TV station" type broadcast. All you get is a tornado siren. You didn't get a phone alert about it happening? I thought those were mandatory for these kinds of events, I think they even overrule some of the DND rules on your phone. I had something similar happen this summer, and I can't remember if I woke up from the alert and wen…

I definitely get the Amber-alert-style phone alert for Tornado warnings in my area.

I had to turn these off because they went off 5 times a day for large parts of the year, often at night. We get a lot of weird spot storms in northeast Georgia from the Gulf that seem to confuse warning systems. It was a choice between dying of stress and poor sleep for sure or maybe dying from a tornado.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#140

Post by IntelMiner »

thomasfedb wrote: post #135
sillysaurusx wrote: post #3

I slept through three tornado sirens last night. It was pretty wild. The first one, I thought it was a test. (We have tests every month on the 1st.) But it wasn't until a few minutes in that I realized it was for real. Then apparently I just... went to sleep? That wasn't the smartest decision I've ever made. It went off a couple more times. One strange thing was the realization that I had no idea where to turn for in…

One of the many reasons I love the ABC (our national broadcaster in Australia) is that everybody knows that they will have the info you need in an emergency - on TV, radio, online, and social media, round the clock.

At least until Murdoch and Fairfax get their wish and the ABC is dismantled

Then we'll be able to hear about it in between commercials for gambling and MasterChef

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