This is a long reply. I live here. I have family and friends in Edwardsville. Amazon's actions fucking infuriate me.
I live within a few hours of Edwardsville. The National Weather Service put us under a tornado watch the same watch the SAME TIME Edwardsville did. We were under a watch for HOURS.
Again, being under a tornado watch is not uncommon here, but it does not mean that a watch should be dismissed.
For those who aren't familiar with tornado watches and warnings, here's a breakdown:
Watch: A tornado COULD happen. The conditions are right. Be alert and be prepared for the worst. Make sure you have a safe place to go. Have your necessities in case the power goes out.
Warning: A tornado/rotation has been spotted. You need to seek shelter immediately.
We were under a watch since at LEAST 5pm. This tornado hit after 8pm. At LEAST 5PM. The tornado warning was in effect for SO LONG. It is rare to get THAT MUCH of a heads up. But this storm was not a usual one.
Normally tornadoes don't last that long. But this December 10th storm was not your typical thunderstorm. The cold December air amplified the storm a fuck ton. It stayed on the ground for longer.
Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes are not uncommon here. Winter severe thunderstorms are rare. Keep this in mind when you read the articles at the end.
I have people who live there. They can confirm this. I have friends who attend/attended SIUe during that time. They saw this tornado. They had the forewarning. There was no reason for them to still be working in a warehouse. A warehouse that was not built to withstand the Midwest weather. (Which is mentioned in the first article I linked.)
We had TWO DAYS NOTICE in how bad a winter thunderstorm could be. TWO DAYS PREP. I had enough prep to move all the holiday stuff out from in front of the storm cellar. (It wasn't as readily available in the winter because we don't HAVE severe storms in the winter. It's extremely extremely uncommon. And winter storms are incredibly capable of becoming extremely dangerous, which we saw December 10th.)
That warehouse was not built to withstand high winds. Just LOOK AT THE WALLS. We had the same winds here. It was so god awful and so fucking terrifying. Literally every one of my friends that lives in Illinois had a tornado warning at some point that night. I can't stress just how bad this was compared to a regular spring storm. I can't stress just how much warning we had for this storm. Meteorologists knew it would be bad. They gave us so much warning. They knew death would happen with this storm. And their forewarning gave so many people an opportunity to survive. To seek shelter with plenty of warning.
I've seen so many storms in my 20+ years living here. This storm scared me shitless.
That warehouse was not built to withstand the high winds we see here during a regular wind storm. There was absolutely no reason why there was no underground storm cellar, especially given how much more frequent tornadoes have become in this area. There's no reason why workers were not immediately told to shut down the instant the warning came into effect. There's no reason why people should have been coming in to start their new shifts with how poor the weather was that night. As the night continued, the weather worsened. (It was uncharacteristically warm that day. The cold night made things so much worse.)
I got hit by the same storm. It was incredibly dangerous to go out. There's no fucking reason why people should have been arriving for their shifts that night. Amazon had AT LEAST two days to plan ahead for this storm and they did NOTHING.
We all had so much fucking time. We literally had upwards of 2 days prep. You had MULTIPLE HOURS within a tornado watch. You had nearly HALF AN HOUR in a tornado warning.
The warehouse was not safe to be in when a tornado struck.
You had the fucking time to make your employees safe. Fuck you, Amazon.
Here is an article from a Belleville site. Belleville is located near Edwardsville. It contains a lot of info. It states that Amazon could improve on 3 things:
- A megaphone that was supposed to be used to inform employees of bad weather was LOCKED IN A LOCKBOX AND WAS INACCESSIBLE. Employees had to be told to go to restrooms via word of mouth.
- Employees couldn't recall where to go because they could not recall any drills. They had no idea which restroom to go to. They were confused. They were not properly trained for this situation.
- Amazon's emergency action plan WAS NOT CUSTOMIZED TO EDWARDSVILLE. It addressed weather, such as hurricanes, which do not occur here. The plan did not "specifically identify the location of the designated shelter areas for the facility." That is a quote that is mentioned directly in the article. We have thunderstorms here. We have tornadoes here. HOW WAS IT NOT CUSTOMIZED? WHY WAS IT NOT CUSTOMIZED?
This article is from a St. Louis site. STL is close to Edwardsville as well. This article states that there were potential structural failures before the tornado strike. Including columns that were damanged!
This is another article written by a local news station. In it, victims speak out. The mother of one victim speaks out. Deon January's son was not supposed to work that day, but was called in to work. Employees who were there stated that their jobs were at stake if they went home. I do recommend reading this article, as it has direct quotes from family members of the victims and contains insight from people who were inside the building when the tornado struck. The picture below is taken from this article. These are the victims of this storm and victims of Amazon's negligence.
I will finish this reply with a quote from this last article. It is a quote from DeAndre Morrow's mother - Deon January.
"The tornado happened by chance, but Amazon's cruelty was a choice," said the mother of DeAndre Morrow.
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