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Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

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

#311

Post by axiolite »

bryans wrote: post #274
dave78 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware though that those kinds of warnings are relatively common in the Midwest? We receive those kinds of advisories at least a few dozen times a year. It would be impractical for everyone to stay home from work every time the conditions are favorable for tornado formation. Plus, in this part of the country most people operate under the assumption that whatever building they're in at the time of a tornado war…

I never said anything about staying home, yet you've constructed a multi-paragraph argument in an attempt to "prove me wrong." I'd love to hear why you thought this was necessary.

Context. You jumped into this conversation very much on the side of the guy who did say: "warnings for the severe weather storm that would have prevented people coming in to work".

Your comment about tornado warnings can ONLY serve to confuse people and potentially give them a very mistaken impression that tornadoes can be accurately and precisely forecast, such that advanced evacuation of an area is a viable strategy.

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

#312

Post by jandrewrogers »

makeitdouble wrote: post #299
jandrewrogers wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever lived in Tornado Alley? These warnings are ubiquitous several months out of the year, year after year. I must've received at least a hundred of those. In the entire time I lived in that part of the world, I saw a single tornado, and that is because I was lucky -- most people that live there decades don't see them. The false positive rate for the average person is extremely high, so it is no wonder peopl…

If I understand correctly, tornadoes are a part of the weather there, with any structure having a set probability to get hit once or more by a tornado in its lifetime. So perhaps the issue would be on why the warehouse crumbled, if Amazon was aware of the structural risks, and how they reacted if there were any warnings on that front ? > like earthquakes on the West Coast. If it’s really so, earthquake zones have bui…

The engineering challenges aren't equivalent. There is no practical engineering that will allow a building to survive an extreme tornado event unless you want to build everything as an underground bunker. We are literally talking serious nuclear weapon energy equivalents, delivered in the way tornados deliver it. That they erase towns is not a surprise.

However, these events are relatively rare and, unlike a M8+ earthquake, the effects are extremely localized. For example, if there was another New Madrid fault zone event at the same scale as happened in the 19th century, which happened in the same region, the damage would dwarf extreme tornado events.

We know how to build practical buildings that can survive severe seismic events, within limits. We do not know how to build practical ordinary buildings that can survive an EF5 tornado, same way we don't know how to survive a direct nuclear strike. Those weather systems are a serious force of nature.

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

#313

Post by jfrunyon »

dave78 wrote: post #270
jfrunyon wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely is. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Tornado_...

That map is not showing "tornado alley", this one is (from the same Wikipedia article): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/To... Note that there's no formal definition, but most people would not consider Missouri/Illinois to be "in" tornado alley, despite regular tornadic activity.

That map is showing the only definition of tornado alley there can be if you insist on a single definition: where tornados happen.

I'm not sure who your most people are but they ain't mine.

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

#314

Post by axiolite »

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.

> A properly engineered reinforced concrete building would easily withstand that.

You could build a building like a tank, but it would price most people out of the market. Doors and windows in that structure won't be able to withstand the obscene wind forces however, so everyone inside will still likely be killed by the airborne debris, anyhow. You really wouldn't have time to install steel shutters on the windows and bar all the doors like you'd need to. But hey, the building will remain standing, so that's a win, right?

Instead of all of that, just requiring a small emergency shelter in each home might actually keep the occupants alive.

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

#315

Post by syshum »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #89
syshum wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because tornado;s are not hurricane, and you literally only get a few minutes notice... not days like you do with a hurricane Unless you think every business should shut down every time there is a tornado watch issued, which hell they issue those like candy the entirety of spring and summer around here we would never get anything done if we shut down for every tornado watch

Operating procedure at a former workplace in Texas was that during a Tornado Warning sheltering in a designated tornado shelter was mandatory . The question should be: was there a tornado warning, and was there any employee not in a tornado room?

Sure, that is pretty standard

I am not sure how you think that disproves some of the comments in and around this thread saying people were "not allowed to call in" or "why was the facility open" or other things like that

Warnings happen minutes before, and last 15-30 mins, maybe an hour. These are not long lasting events.

Notice you did not say that your workplace "shut down" or "told employees to go home" or anything like that

They are to shelter in place, Arriving employee go to the shelter, employee getting off shift are prohibited from leaving. That is normal procedure at most companies

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

#316

Post by syshum »

dotancohen wrote: post #294
throwawayboise wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. Is that feeling widespread? In my area we have sirens for different a type of threat, but everybody that I know drops what they are doing and rushes to the shelter, even if it happens two dozen times day and night. To what would you attribute the lack of co…

I have never once dropped what I was doing an rushed to a shelter unless forced to do so by overriding company policy while at my employers place of business.

If I am operating under my own accord if a warning is issued I normally find the nearest weather resource with active tracking of the cell to see if I should even care as warning are no where near targeted enough

If I am in path of the storm I then look to see if this is a confirmed or radar based warning, I then look to other sources (including visual outside) to my my own determination on if it is proper to shelter. 80% of the time I make the choice of Nope do not need to bother

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

#317

Post by Rebelgecko »

dylan604 wrote: post #145
wsh wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

Some of the news channels where my parents live have experimented with outsourcing and/or prerecording their weather reports. On one channel, the daily weather report talks about yesterday's weather and tomorrow's weather, but skips things like the current day's high temperature because it hasn't happened yet when that segment was recorded. Although I suppose if the anchors are live they can jump in with an emergency warning.

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

#318

Post by romwell »

bmitc wrote: post #307
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…

All of that was my point.

Sure, I just felt like answering the rhetorical questions explicitly for anyone who's skimming for the sake of clarity.

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

#319

Post by syshum »

JonathonW wrote: post #275
cbfrench wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, frankly, how often are you under a legitimate TOR warning that you’re having to do this? I live in the Midwest—in tornado country, no less—and the number of TOR warnings that disrupt my life in a given year I can count on one hand (assuming there are any). Also this just misunderstands the threat of tornadoes. A warning is issued for a county-wide area, even though a tornado threatens (at most) a couple-mile…

Tornado and other storm warnings haven't been issued by county for several years now-- warnings are issued for a polygon where the storm may impact (plus some margin of error). If you're in a tornado warning polygon now, you'll want to take shelter. If you're not in the polygon, you don't need to (depending on how you get your storm alerts, you might still be alerted by county, though-- that's my big complaint about…

>>>Tornado and other storm warnings haven't been issued by county for several years now... depending on how you get your storm alerts, you might still be alerted by county, though-- that's my big complaint about the current state of weather radio

To a normal person this is perceived as as a warning being issued for them, even if you are technically correct that the NWS only target a narrow polygon, if a person phone lights up with an EAS saying "Tornado warning", or their TV, or weather radio, that is perceived as them personally being issued a tornado warning.

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