A first responders walks among the rubble of a damaged Amazon warehouse on December 11, 2021.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is opening an investigation into the deaths of six workers at an Amazon warehouse in Illinois that was struck by a massive tornado, one of more than 40 that ripped through the region over the weekend.
The building was torn apart by winds as high as 150 mph. The National Weather Service said that the west-facing walls of the warehouse collapsed inward as the tornado moved through the complex.
The first warnings came at 8:06 pm and 8:16 pm. A warning is when a twister has been spotted or radar data shows one will form. The NWS says that the tornado was the lowest on the scale at the lowest point, and that it quickly intensified to an EF3 as it moved across I-265. The lead time was double the average, and more than 20 minutes elapsed between the first warning and touchdown.
The second tornado warning coincides with the time when warehouse managers ordered workers to find shelter. A small group of workers took shelter on the south end of the building, which was destroyed by the tornado. According to Amazon, six workers were killed and 39 survived.
The Amazon family passed away as a result of the storm in the area, and we are deeply sad about it. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their loved ones, and everyone impacted by the tornado.
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There is workplace safety.
The deaths have sparked new scrutiny of Amazon's labor practices. The agency looks into all workplace deaths, though it hasn't revealed the details of its investigation, and Amazon supports the agency. Workers at the facility have said that their sites have never run tornado drills, and family members have criticized the company for not letting workers find shelter sooner.
Shelter-in-place plans should be practiced on a regular basis, according to OSHA guidelines. Amazon provides emergency response training to new employees, and training is reinforced throughout the year, according to a company spokesman.
According to The Intercept, Amazon's corporate offices were busy with network issues and only learned about the tornado strike through media reports. An Amazon employee told the site that the correspondence showed that nobody knew what was happening. The media found out that the building was hit by a tornado when people joined in on the tickets to fix the issues.
There is no safe room.
The Amazon warehouse was built using a tilt up technique, in which steel-reinforced concrete walls are poured horizontally on-site and tilted up into place. The top of the wall is tied into the roof to brace it. The structures are cheap to build and favored by warehouses and big-box retailers, but they are not known for their integrity in storms. The heavy walls become less stable after the roof comes off. The tornado ripped off the roof and pushed the walls down, destroying everything in its path.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that a professor of structural engineering at the Missouri University of Science & Technology said thatlt-up buildings were not invented for resisting tornadoes.
There weren't safe rooms built to handle the force of tornadoes. In the Midwest, many buildings have basements that double as tornado shelters. In buildings with no basements or reinforced safe rooms, the best option during a tornado warning is to use the bathroom in the interior rooms.
The warehouse was constructed in a way that was consistent with code, and the workers had a few minutes to get to the shelter, according to the spokeswoman.
