Live data from Hacker News

Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

reuters.com

141–150 of 367 posts

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

#141

Unfortunate that the title got cut off: "Six Amazon workers killed after tornadoes reduce warehouse near St. Louis to rubble" But the bigger story here is that despite multiple warnings of dangerous weather, the workers at this warehouse still ended up having to choose between risking their life or being fired/written up for refusing to come in. They didn't feel like they had the power to say "No, I won't work becaus…

What is the counter factual where the workers' don't risk their lives? My intuition is that an Amazon warehouse is safer than a typical home during a tornado. And many homes were completely destroyed during this event as well. With the benifit of hindsight, it would have been better if no one was at that particular warehouse. But we can only say that because we know where the tornado hit with an accuracy that is no w…

A warehouse is a very bad place to be... what kills you is flying objects, not the wind itself.

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

#142
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article doesn’t support what you are saying. Do you have evidence to support these theories? What happened is terrible and is part of a much broader natural disaster. Trying to turn this into some shallow Amazon shaming is unfortunate.

several people on this thread are asking for "evidence" for claims. but here's the more interesting question: why is an amazon warehouse open when a tornado warning was in effect? was it to shelter people? and if not, why was it open?

Because tornado warnings and watches happen many times a year in tornado alley. Amazon is far from exceptional in having its warehouse open during these weather conditions.

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

#143

*"reduce to rubble" or "destroys" How tragic, I feel awful for their families and so close to the holidays. :(

poverty is one hell of an issue in the us. it boggles the mind how people live in such brittle homes and yet nothing changes. perhaps just like with covid “prayers” and “thoughts” are all the future dead will be given by the “freedom loving” society?

These workers were killed in a warehouse, not their homes.

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

#144

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.

0. Insight porn from previously-successful VC or VC wannabe

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

#145
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Well, yeah, required might have been too strong. It is strongly frowned upon for a station with a news/weather program to not participate in a "The NWS has requested...". Not sure they'd not get their license renewed, but their audience sure wouldn't watch them for much longer. What kind of news station would NOT broadcast this info?

Besides, if you're a news/weather station in Tornado Alley, you pride yourself on the equipment and people operating it. They do entire promos dedicated to storm spotting etc. I've worked with one local station shooting a package specifically for this.

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

#146
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I am not sure about US warehouses, but somewhere else it will surely will. Any seismic regulation would've probably completely blasted a building where roof is not held in place in tension. In general, remains seem to lack any continuous reinforcement in between panels. Only flimsy fasteners held them together. USA is a land of contradictions, and its building codes are no exception. They write 100 pages sections of…

> zero chances surviving a tornado

Most buildings are in this category, and it make sense. This is not where the fault lies.

Building something to specifically withstand 200mph wind is NOT reasonable. Hurricanes force wind by comparison starts at 74mph and decays quickly inland.

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

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

several people on this thread are asking for "evidence" for claims. but here's the more interesting question: why is an amazon warehouse open when a tornado warning was in effect? was it to shelter people? and if not, why was it open?

Because tornado warnings and watches happen many times a year in tornado alley. Amazon is far from exceptional in having its warehouse open during these weather conditions.

Amazon is far from exceptional in having its warehouse open during these weather conditions.

And you know that how precisely?

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

#148
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article doesn’t support what you are saying. Do you have evidence to support these theories? What happened is terrible and is part of a much broader natural disaster. Trying to turn this into some shallow Amazon shaming is unfortunate.

several people on this thread are asking for "evidence" for claims. but here's the more interesting question: why is an amazon warehouse open when a tornado warning was in effect? was it to shelter people? and if not, why was it open?

Tornado warnings are sudden, the last thing you want to do is put everyone in their car and on the road during a tornado warning. A tornado watch is not reason enough to shut down. A tornado watch means “keep an eye on the weather”. There’s a lot of room between watch and warning (there’s also “tornado emergency” in extreme scenarios) and deciding when things are bad enough to close but not bad enough to shelter in place is more of an art than science. I’m sure whoever was in charge of keeping the warehouse open or closing it down isn’t exactly sleeping well.

I can’t answer your question exactly but I have been in a warehouse when a tornado warning was issued and the warehouse in the path of the storm. They got everyone together and put us all against the strongest wall furthest from the approaching tornado. (It lifted before reaching us)

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

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> 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. How would I even go about doing that? The only display devices I have are monitors. Even for radio, I would have to go to my car to listen.

Are you being pedantic with no information on how to receive local broadcasts because you've chosen to not have TV/radio/etc, or are you really just unaware of how to do this on modern equipment? Many responses answer if it is the latter, for the former, well, go back under your bridge troll ;-)

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

#150

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…

When I was studying in the states fire alarm tests (or someone cooking triggering them) were so frequent that I would have never expected to be informed of a real fire this way.

Monthly test alarms are so wrong.

Post reply on HN