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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

#231

Post by throwawayboise »

cbfrench wrote: post #191
syshum wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeah, there is a reason, after so many times of dropping what you are doing and rushing to the basement, only to have nothing happen, it becomes an annoyance and is not taken seriously.

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

#232

Post by asteroidbelt »

Hokusai wrote: post #221
asteroidbelt wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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

Humans in warehouse don’t have leverage and will have even less leverage in the future regardless of what they would be able to negotiate now.

> Who is going to buy products?

People making robots (designing, configuring, installing, fixing etc).

Or people doing service work like nannies, teachers, massage therapists, waiters, diving instructors, receptionists etc. All the work which can be automated, but humans are still preferable than robots.

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

#233

Post by throwawayboise »

mannykannot wrote: post #189
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…

Do you think you would have reacted differently during tornado season? (I'm not sure when that is, but I am pretty sure December isn't in it, or at least was not before the storms of 2011.) I think it is also worth pointing out that merely having sirens, and the information network capable (for the most part) of setting them off when and only when there is a significant risk, is well within about 90% of being as good…

I didn't pay it much mind, exactly because it wasn't very warm out. Once tree branches started flying around and banging on the roof, I did go downstairs for a few minutes.

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

#234

Post by fortran77 »

dylan604 wrote: post #98
fortran77 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. There's for some parental custody battle 200 miles away. I disabled mine because I can't afford to have an audible alarm go off randomly in my line of work.

Thinking of what jobs this would be a thing...all of them. Turn your damn ringers off at work people!!!

Even with ringer off, the ‘Amber Alerts” ring. I’ve had it ruin recording sessions.

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

#235

Post by throwawayboise »

Kye wrote: post #139
tylermac1 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah I have all that alerting stuff disabled on my phone too. Way too many false alarms.

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

#236

Post by pigbearpig »

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.

Wow. Go to their website, Twitter, whatever. Spend $15 on a weather radio with alerts. It’s really not as hard as you’re making it out to be.

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

#237

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#238

Post by throwawayboise »

bryans wrote: post #227
axiolite wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Tornados are still very localized even with advance warning. The buildings across the street from the warehouse might well have been undamaged (I don't know, but certainly possible).

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

#239

Post by makeitdouble »

Moru wrote: post #198
romwell wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

“Vote with your wallet” principles are relevant when it comes to toxic social behavior only if you’re actually paying activists/lobbyists.

Otherwise pushing for the rules to be properly enforced and/or to change for the better should be where efforts go.

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

#240

Post by jfrunyon »

Unfortunately, this will cost Amazon significantly less than if they were to... you know... have well-constructed buildings, and severe weather plans, etc.

Businesses are responsible for the physical welfare of their employees when they require their employees to be on the business premises. But until the cost of not ensuring their safety exceeds the cost of occasional death or injury, this will keep happening.

It's not the first time severe weather has killed multiple people in a warehouse (this year, or probably even this month), and it won't be the last until we demand change.

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