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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

#61
post #53

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…

You can use your phone as an FM/AM radio receiver. Tune to your local station.

I assume you're talking about streaming the station over the Internet

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

#62
post #8

Unfortunate that the title got cut off: "Six Amazon workers killed after tornadoes reduce warehouse near St. Louis to rubble" But the bigger story here is that despite multiple warnings of dangerous weather, the workers at this warehouse still ended up having to choose between risking their life or being fired/written up for refusing to come in. They didn't feel like they had the power to say "No, I won't work becaus…

> They didn't feel like they had the power to say You definitely don't know this. Please don't speak to the mindset of people that just died when you have no idea.

it feels more like you don't know what actually happens in the real world.

every single one of us (employees of large companies) are completely and wholly expendable in the eyes of the people who run the companies we work for, when compared against potentially lost profit.

we all know this. we work at these places anyway because there are no places to work which are not like this.

not only are we expendable, we only have the tiny value that we have as assets because the law strongly encourages employers to view us as having some value. if the risk of profit loss outweighs the risk of paying to recover from personnel loss, people are gonna regularly die working for that company. leadership doesn't even call things like this "loss" but the "cost of doing business".

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

#63

Are Amazon workers somehow special that they get upvoted on HN. What a bizarre, bizarre society we're living in.

There are five sure paths to the HN front page: 1. Material about Big Tech being evil. 2. Material about how to get hired in Big Tech. 3. "_______ written in Rust". 4. Cities good, cars bad, Elon's good. 5. Typography.

Also, rewriting service N in golang.

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

#64
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that really is the story. Homes are not exactly safer, and there was a tornado warning for all of Madison county. Perhaps you've seen photos of what these things do to small wooden structures. Yes, their home was probably ok from this particular tornado, but I think that has more to do with luck than safety.

Sure their homes may not have been safer, but they would have had more opportunities to get to a shelter, or to find somewhere safe, as compared to having to be at work picking shelves in a warehouse built to the minimum spec/cost.

Well, they could have just... done exactly that.

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

#65

Unfortunate that the title got cut off: "Six Amazon workers killed after tornadoes reduce warehouse near St. Louis to rubble" But the bigger story here is that despite multiple warnings of dangerous weather, the workers at this warehouse still ended up having to choose between risking their life or being fired/written up for refusing to come in. They didn't feel like they had the power to say "No, I won't work becaus…

What is the counter factual where the workers' don't risk their lives? My intuition is that an Amazon warehouse is safer than a typical home during a tornado. And many homes were completely destroyed during this event as well. With the benifit of hindsight, it would have been better if no one was at that particular warehouse. But we can only say that because we know where the tornado hit with an accuracy that is no where near possible to achieve ahead of time.

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

#66

Unfortunate that the title got cut off: "Six Amazon workers killed after tornadoes reduce warehouse near St. Louis to rubble" But the bigger story here is that despite multiple warnings of dangerous weather, the workers at this warehouse still ended up having to choose between risking their life or being fired/written up for refusing to come in. They didn't feel like they had the power to say "No, I won't work becaus…

Can you post some citation for these allegations? Maybe this is being widely reported and I've just missed it, but I'm not aware of positive evidence for the allegations you've made.

There were tornado warnings issued for the area. The weather was getting bad. I am not saying these workers were directly coerced into coming in, but I think given the choice, anyone not in some way forced to come in to work would avoid coming in to work when there's a tornado warning for the area. The simple fact that these people came into work leads me to think that one of three things is at play -- ignorance, stupidity, or coercion. So sure, there may be some people who worked at that warehouse who just moved to the area and weren't familiar with tornadoes, tornado warnings and inclement weather. Some may have just completely ignored the danger. But I think the majority felt that they had to still show up to work or risk losing their job. And despite what r/antiwork would have you believe about jobs being plentiful, in some areas they just aren't. Losing a job at the only major employer in the area can spell disaster.

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

#67

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…

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.

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

#68
post #37

Unfortunate that the title got cut off: "Six Amazon workers killed after tornadoes reduce warehouse near St. Louis to rubble" But the bigger story here is that despite multiple warnings of dangerous weather, the workers at this warehouse still ended up having to choose between risking their life or being fired/written up for refusing to come in. They didn't feel like they had the power to say "No, I won't work becaus…

[deleted]

has a tornado ever hit the gym? Do you if it would survive?

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

#69
post #32

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…

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.

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

#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.

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