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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

#221

Post by Hokusai »

asteroidbelt wrote: post #215
floatingatoll wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon penalizes their workers for bathroom breaks and replaced their HR team with a chatbot. This is allowed by federal labor laws, and Amazon’s primary source of retail revenue is externalizing human costs. Our tech and business communities believe regulations are harmful, and American politicians are inept. So I don’t see how we can prevent their abuse unless something changes; yet, no one wants to be the one that…

> unless something changes People will be replaced by robots, this is what will change. It is already happening. McDonalds is canonical example of that.

That is there best argument to fight now for good conditions, the more robots in the future the less leverage to negotiate.

On a second note, if robots replace humans. Who is going to buy products? Because humans without jobs do not have money. Why have warehouses if nobody can but anything? That hypothetical future were robots replace workers is way more complicated that many people thinks.

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

#222

Post by BeetleB »

riversflow wrote: post #160
BeetleB wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When there's tornadoes about, the first thing companies should tell their workers is 'Find somewhere safe to shelter, don't worry about the job or reducing damage to the company. I worked in the Midwest for a number of years. Every time there was a tornado siren, an attempt would be made to alert everyone in the building. We were to go to the shelter in the basement and/or 1st floor. Only a minority would actually…

> Did people not go because they were worried about productivity dropping? No! > So to me, reading people imply that they got killed because of capitalism is ludicrous. Take a look at people who aren't brainwashed by capitalism if you think this is ludicrous--kids in elementary school. Most of them are happy for emergency drills as they waste class time. They get to chat with their peers and go for a walk instead of…

At this stage you might as well indict human nature. Drawing a line at "company" or "Amazon" is arbitrary.

Most children are happy to not do work in general. Most children are happy not trying to save food for the winter as well. It's up to you to decide if encouraging stocking for the winter is evil or not.

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

#224

Post by cronix »

asteroidbelt wrote: post #215
floatingatoll wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon penalizes their workers for bathroom breaks and replaced their HR team with a chatbot. This is allowed by federal labor laws, and Amazon’s primary source of retail revenue is externalizing human costs. Our tech and business communities believe regulations are harmful, and American politicians are inept. So I don’t see how we can prevent their abuse unless something changes; yet, no one wants to be the one that…

> unless something changes People will be replaced by robots, this is what will change. It is already happening. McDonalds is canonical example of that.

Tesla Bot enters the chat.

https://youtu.be/HUP6Z5voiS8?t=87

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

#225

Post by vanusa »

goseeastarwar wrote: post #194
vanusa wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

OK I get the message. Do we know when these alerts start appearing in the Edwardsville area?

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

#226

Post by GavinMcG »

DantesKite wrote: post #190

What’s crazy is how at least 70 people have died in other states. A bunch of tornadoes happened at around the same time. It caught everybody by surprise.

It shouldn't have been that much of a surprise. As of Thursday morning, the Storm Prediction Center had identified the threat:

> Severe thunderstorms capable of producing several tornadoes and scattered to numerous damaging winds appear probable from mainly Friday evening into Friday night across parts of the lower/mid Mississippi Valley into the lower Ohio Valley and Tennessee Valley. Some of these nocturnal tornadoes may be strong.

https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/archive/2021/day2o...

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

#227

Post by bryans »

axiolite wrote: post #208
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…

Tornadoes aren't hurricanes... There aren't hours and days of advanced notice. Only a few minutes. You can't shut down for every thunder storm on the astronomical chance it'll turn into a tornado and head in your direction. The article did somewhat address your questions: "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…

> There aren't hours and days of advanced notice. Only a few minutes.

Every major weather and news organization was warning about "a very high likelihood of nocturnal tornadoes in the area" 12+ hours before they happened.

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

#228

Post by dave78 »

tigerInATurvy wrote: post #220
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…

Get a weather radio if you don't have one. For about 20-40 bucks, you can get one with rechargeable batteries and a charging cradle. Follow the instructions to set it for your regional station. It will wake up and sound the alert for any warnings in your area. Plus you can actively listen to it for the latest storm news. As long as you still have power & internet, your local tv station will usually stream during weat…

Seconding the recommendation for a weather radio. If you get a good one, you can program it with your SAME code (basically a region code) and also select which types of alerts you want it to sound for. I have one next to my bed since we're on the upper level of a 2-story house with it set to only alert on severe thunderstorm warnings and tornado warnings. This gives me confidence that I will be alerted if there's an issue and still have time to make it to the basement.

This is the radio I have, and though I have a few small complaints overall I'm very happy with it:

https://www.amazon.com/Sangean-CL-100-Certified-Table-Top-St...

As a side note, having lived my whole life in the Midwest I've always dealt with tornados and know how they work, and it's shocking how little a lot of other people here seem to know. I guess if you don't have a few tornado watches/warnings a year then you just don't ever learn about them. The amount of ridiculous takes in these comments is really something - you don't find out about tornados before you go to work so you can stay home, or have time when there's a tornado warning to get in your car and go for a drive or anything like that. If you're lucky you have 5-10 minutes notice, but it's common to get only 30 seconds or so of warning. People who live in the Midwest know that when you hear a tornado warning (around here they sound the civil defense sirens, but also weather radio and phone alerts), you go to your place of shelter immediately.

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

#229

Post by throwawayboise »

sakopov wrote: post #32
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…

I lived in Midwest for over 20 years. There were times when I'd be sipping coffee while sitting outside a coffee shop underneath giant funnel clouds above. Tornado alerts are common but touchdowns are so rare that you just kind of not pay attention anymore. With that said, it seems like when they do occur they are increasingly more damaging and closer to densely populated areas. Two years ago there was one just a few…

OK, that seems completely weird.

I've lived in the midwest for 50 years, and have never seen a funnel cloud (I have seen the aftermath of a few).

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

#230

Post by nimbius »

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…

EAS is still broadcast over the air on the VHF spectrum and includes NOAA weather updates which your taxes pay for. Buy a weather radio, because the TV alerts are literally just EAS receivers interrupting programming.

EAS transmission sites are built to withstand tornadoes and even casual offensive military strikes. TV stations aren't.

You may also consider getting into amateur radio too.

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