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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

#161

Post by bmitc »

I don’t understand a few things, as they aren’t covered in the article, that I saw.

Were there no warnings for the severe weather storm that would have prevented people coming in to work or allowed them to leave work early? When I was working in the office, we were usually forced (literally security swept the building) to leave when severe winter weather was coming in a few times.

Why doesn’t Amazon, in the middle of Tornado Alley, have tornado shelters for its employees? Employees should not be having to run around finding places to hide. There should be designated shelters.

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

#163

Post by MisterBastahrd »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #67
bluefirebrand wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this what emergency alerts are for on our phones?

I know many people that turned it off because the authorities abused the system too much.

Yes, I especially loved it months ago when I was getting Amber alerts for a child abduction that took place in San Antonio (I'm in Dallas). I was totally ready to jump out of bed at 3am and look for a silver Impala that couldn't have even gotten to my location for another 5 hours.

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

#165

Post by Kye »

baybal2 wrote: post #111
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.

> Horrific. > A wall that size cannot possibly survive a big wind. > Cannot. A reinforced concrete should've been easily capable of withstanding a hurricane. First thing I see is that roof was not attached to anything reinforcing in the wall, or columns. It seems it solely relied on its weight, which was easily overwhelmed by wind, to keep it in place.

Damage scales exponentially with wind speed. Hurricanes max out around ~180MPH. That's the speed of a feisty F3 tornado. You can be "hit" by a hurricane and be fine unless it's the eye or you get some debris in higher winds further out. Any hit from a tornado brings the full force of a thin column of debris whirling at that speed.

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

#166

Post by rootusrootus »

baybal2 wrote: post #151
Aperocky wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Building something to specifically withstand 200mph wind A properly engineered reinforced concrete building would easily withstand that.

What's the point, though? Statistically, most people who live deep in Tornado Alley will never even see a tornado in their lifetime. Getting hit by one is like winning the bad luck lottery; trying to build all buildings to be tornado proof would be wildly expensive and difficult to justify. Better to focus on good warning systems and making sure shelters are plentiful.

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

#167

Post by splitstud »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #16
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…

if you live in tornado alley you ought to have an emergency radio, it at least gives you something to listen to while the power’s out https://www.amazon.com/Raynic-Emergency-Portable-Flashlight-...

These are great devices, especially the better models. Radio including weather band, flashlight and phone charger, plug in a lamp or water kettle. Must have on the gulf coast.

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

#168

Post by hyakosm »

SECProto wrote: post #114
dylan604 wrote: post #95

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.

In my city, the public local station (CBFT-2) is broadcasting news and some other emissions on the Web. But I love my cheap ATSC tuner "converter box": can be useful in case of network outage, it can also record programs on a USB drive and play a lot of video files. Sadly, it's difficult to find an ATSC dongle for computer, they're less popular and more expensive than DVB dongles.

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

#169

Post by rootusrootus »

stohk wrote: post #94
fosk wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why they haven't compartmentalized the wall in such a way that in case of structural failure only individual sections will potentially collapse, not the whole thing.

This type of warehouse building is extremely pervasive right now. Having worked in an amazon facility and several other 'modern' warehouses, they all share the same design. It's prefabbed concrete sections held in place by steel support columns. Steel truss structure holding roof with steel I-beams providing support to roof. Any modern warehouse struck by the same inclement weather will suffer the same exact fate. Wi…

I can't even imagine what it would take to design a warehouse-size building to withstand 200-300 mph winds. Not just expensive, but the engineering required would be pretty significant.

By comparison, I think it is probably fairly straightforward to make office buildings that can stay reasonably intact even with a direct hit. Much more structure to work with.

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

#170

Post by rootusrootus »

baybal2 wrote: post #111
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.

> Horrific. > A wall that size cannot possibly survive a big wind. > Cannot. A reinforced concrete should've been easily capable of withstanding a hurricane. First thing I see is that roof was not attached to anything reinforcing in the wall, or columns. It seems it solely relied on its weight, which was easily overwhelmed by wind, to keep it in place.

> A reinforced concrete should've been easily capable of withstanding a hurricane.

Hurricanes are kinda wimpy, though. Their main claim to fame is sustained winds. A tornado can pack winds pushing 300 mph. Good luck building a warehouse that can take a direct hit from that.

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