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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

#91

Post by blamazon »

fosk wrote: post #80
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.

I wonder why they haven't compartmentalized the wall in such a way that in case of structural failure only individual sections will potentially collapse, not the whole thing.

Look at the photos—the panels that make up the exterior wall are segmented into narrow vertical strips. There’s not much you can do about a direct hit across all the cells.

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

#92

Post by BeetleB »

oatz wrote: post #53
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…

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

Not true for all phones. I know I checked with at least one of my older phones (a Samsung Galaxy) and it could not do radio.

Edit: Checked: My current phone doesn't support radio as well.

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

#93

Post by BingoAhoy »

tpmx wrote: post #52
tedivm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This site has a very anti-labor bias, as most people here expect to be running companies (or already do).

"This site" has a very strong dislike for politically motivated speculation masquerading as fact.

Both you and the parent could be correct. I see a lot of spurious speculation in various forms but only certain speculation is more likely to get downvoted. Case in point the speculation surrounding the motivations of some unknown anonymous poster downvoting the grandgrandparent based off of extrapolating from other downvotes elsewhere.

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

#94

Post by stohk »

fosk wrote: post #80
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.

I wonder why they haven't compartmentalized the wall in such a way that in case of structural failure only individual sections will potentially collapse, not the whole thing.

This type of warehouse building is extremely pervasive right now. Having worked in an amazon facility and several other 'modern' warehouses, they all share the same design. It's prefabbed concrete sections held in place by steel support columns. Steel truss structure holding roof with steel I-beams providing support to roof. Any modern warehouse struck by the same inclement weather will suffer the same exact fate.

Will add that the weather affecting this particular facility was extreme by any measure but most facilities that occupy the tornado alley should seriously consider this. My facility had a shelter in place policy in case of inclement weather which basically means, everyone(800-1k people?) huddle into 4, 6 person bathrooms.

Amazon Leased the building I worked in, so kind of removes them from blame of structural failure, but maybe not he decision to occupy the building during known severe weather.

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

#95

Post by dylan604 »

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…

>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 will as well, but I can't remember the last time I heard Clearcom or whatever the othe station owner is do this. I just don't listen to radio.

Also, most local stations will also be running live webcasts to FB/YT/etc. They do this in order to avoid interrupting programming until it is urgent enough to do so.

I'm in North Texas, and during severe weather season, I have a web browser permantely tuned to the radar. If it's getting bad, I'll find a local station.

> I imagine if nuclear armageddon ever happens, it'll be similar

If you're in Hawaii, you'll get a text.

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

#96

Post by AlbertCory »

StevePerkins wrote: post #30
suqiifkfkg wrote: post #15

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.

4.1 Cities good, suburbs especially bad.

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

#97

Post by mmcgaha »

hutzlibu wrote: post #71
hereforphone wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No he or she is not, a radio receiver is not such a high tech after all and I think all of my mobile phones had or have that feature build in, even though I never used it (in some you would have to have earphones plugged in as a antenna)

I haven't had a phone with built in radio, but back in the late 0s I had an ipod with a built in FM radio, and it was the coolest radio I ever had. You could pause and rewind it like a tivo. I assume the radio on a smart phone would be about the same.

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

#98

Post by dylan604 »

fortran77 wrote: post #55
bluefirebrand wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this what emergency alerts are for on our phones?

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!!!

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

#99

Post by gizmo686 »

genocidicbunny wrote: post #58
madrox wrote: 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.

The official advice in the first warning:

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

To repeat, a tornado is on the ground. TAKE COVER NOW! Move to a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. Avoid windows. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris.

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/vtec/#2021-O-NEW-KLSX-TO-W...

If you are in a reasonable building (such as a typical home) when a tornado warning is issued, do not seek alternative shelter. Seek the most secure area of the building you are already in.

You can search all the warnings/watches here: https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/vtec/search.php#byugc/MOC1...

I will note that the watch (which proceeded the warning) suggested to precautionary action.

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/vtec/#2021-O-NEW-KLSX-TO-A...

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

#100

Post by enragedcacti »

JCM9 wrote: post #39
genocidicbunny wrote: post #5

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…

The article doesn’t support what you are saying. Do you have evidence to support these theories? What happened is terrible and is part of a much broader natural disaster. Trying to turn this into some shallow Amazon shaming is unfortunate.

The facts we have are:

Amazon kept a warehouse open and operational, including bringing a new shift in, during a Tornado watch for the area. (this is in the article)

edit r.e. this point: other commenters have noted that while the circumstances for a tornado arising are known in advance, the tornado appears quickly enough that realistically the only option if workers are in the building at that point is to move them to a designated area of the building that's more protected. There isn't any evidence of this happening from what I have seen from the media or Amazon.

Amazon workers are penalized heavily for being late or missing shifts and the systems for calling out can be unreliable or your request can be rejected outright. Workers are also heavily penalized for Time-Off-Task and its unclear that the policy or tracking software acknowledges seeking shelter during a tornado warning as not TOT. [1][2][hundreds of anecdotal accounts across the internet]

Amazon has not released any evidence that they informed workers there wouldn't be a penalty for a no show despite having made public statements about the incident, nor have any workers who survived attested to that. (Impossible to provide a source for a lack of evidence).

and for opinion:

Even if Amazon had told workers they were free not to come in, I believe it is the responsibility of Amazon to determine the safety of their building relative to the inclement weather which they have clearly failed to do.

What else is there left unanswered about the situation, in your view?

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-wor...

[2] https://twitter.com/LCampbell_35/status/1469815411462000647

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