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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

#191

Post by cbfrench »

syshum wrote: post #82
CamperBob2 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I lived in the Midwest for nearly 20 years as well. Tornado watches were common, warnings much less so... and if anyone saw a funnel cloud, it was time to panic, duck, and cover right freaking now .

years ago they would only call a warning when they had a confirmed visual on a touch down, I am not sure when they made the change but for at least the last few years (and probably longer) I have noticed them calling more and more warning based on radar signature alone

In part because the radar tech has advanced so much. Based on reflectivity, velocity, and correlation coefficient alone, they are able to make a pretty sound guess about whether or not a supercell or QLCS is capable of producing a tornado. There’s no reason why you would want to wait for visual confirmation of the radar output when it could mean the difference (potentially) between giving people in the path a long or a short lead time on the warning.

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

#192

Post by unpolloloco »

bmitc wrote: post #161

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…

I've never been called off for the threat of severe non-winter weather anywhere. And the risk of being in a house hit by this tornado was probably higher than in the warehouse.

The lack of tornado shelter is the problem here - or more likely, they probably had one but weren't instructed to use it...

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

#194

Post by goseeastarwar »

vanusa wrote: post #147
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because people live here and are telling you that a tornado watch can sometimes be a weekly occurrence in the summer. Tornado warnings are far more rare, but even then, it generally takes tornado sirens/phone alerts to adjust people's behavior.

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

#195

Post by KingMachiavelli »

bmitc wrote: post #161

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…

The article says employees were notified to go to the shelter-in-place area? It's phrased a bit strangely so I don't know if it means 'our policy is to do X' or if it means 'we actually did X'.

> Amazon said all employees were normally notified and directed to move to a designated, marked shelter-in-place location when a site was made aware of a tornado warning in the area.

I have had to shelter in place for tornadoes a few times in school but that really meant getting every person in a single room so you could evacuate if needed. It sounds like either the tornado that hit the warehouse either formed too quickly and close by for them to respond or perhaps there was some process/training issue where someone forgot they needed to be watching the weather closely. It would also be easy to accidentally be getting weather news for a nearby but different location.

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

#196

Post by jessaustin »

markdown wrote: post #164

> Amazon did not have an exact count of the number of people working in the sorting and delivery center at the time the tornadoes hit, Whiteford said. WTF? Do they record attendance on paper?

Usually they're bragging about how everyone is tracked relentlessly so they can penalize people for taking longer than 38 seconds to piss. It does seem unlikely that such a system could function without knowing how many people are working at any particular time.

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

#197

Post by vkou »

romwell wrote: post #185
bmitc wrote: post #161

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…

>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? There were warnings. Warnings that skipping work would get one fired[1]. And since the warehouse was not closed that day, the warning was: clock in on time, or else, weather be damned. >When I was working in the office... Well there's a difference between how office employees ar…

Given Amazon's track record with warehouses, I expect surviving staff will be provided with the opportunity to take an unpaid day off to grieve.

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

#198

Post by Moru »

romwell wrote: post #185
bmitc wrote: post #161

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…

>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? There were warnings. Warnings that skipping work would get one fired[1]. And since the warehouse was not closed that day, the warning was: clock in on time, or else, weather be damned. >When I was working in the office... Well there's a difference between how office employees ar…

And because we keep buying from Amazon no matter what.

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

#199

Post by mjrpes »

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…

Following radar maps can give you a hint of what's to come. Check out this doppler map of Mayfield right before it got hit:

https://weather.us/radar-us/kentucky/radar-and-lightning/KHP...

Notice it was right in line with a cell at the "extreme/hail" end of the spectrum.

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

#200

Post by AlbertCory »

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?

Thanks everyone. The hypothesis was "if Midwest buildings were built to Florida standards, the warehouse would have survived."

Disproved.

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