'Too Much Emphasis On Tornado Watches,' Amazon Official Says Of Deadly Storm

EDWARDSVILLE, IL — "Amazon won't let us leave," delivery driver Larry Virden, 46, texted his girlfriend shortly before a tornado shredded the warehouse where he worked, killing him and five others. Fox 2 St. Louis obtained the text and published it in a report on Saturday.

Despite hours of warning that a dangerous line of storms was approaching, Amazon officials seemed to take no action until minutes before the tornado touched down in the warehouse's parking lot.

According to Amazon media relations director Kelly Nantel, officials began notifying warehouse workers of the approaching tornado with bullhorns and radios sometime after 8:06 p.m., when the first tornado warning was issued for Edwardsville. The tornado struck shortly before 8:30 p.m.

But a tornado watch had been issued at 5:43 p.m., and it was clear for nearly three hours that the line of storms was producing tornadoes and headed toward the warehouse.

"I believe [a previous Patch article] puts too much emphasis on tornado watches," Amazon public relations manager Max Gleber wrote Monday in an email forwarded to Patch.

According to the National Weather Service, a tornado watch means "tornadoes are possible in and near the watch area" and cautions people in those areas to "review and discuss your emergency plans and check supplies and your safe room" — something the Amazon warehouse did not have.

"I want to be really clear, it's not a 'safe room' as you're describing it," Amazon media relations director Kelly Nantel told reporters at a news conference Monday. "It's an area of the facility that is safe for people to converge. Generally speaking, it's in an area where there are no windows, so that it's a safer space to be in the building. It is not a 'safe room.'"

As for why Virden — an Army veteran and father of four — wasn't allowed to leave the facility, an Amazon official cited OSHA guidance to "take shelter immediately."

"When a site is made aware of a tornado warning in the area, all employees are notified and directed to move to a designated and marked shelter in place location," Jessica Chromy, an Amazon spokesperson, told Patch. "This is the safest approach to ensure that no one is on the road or outside during a tornado."

Chromy credited "leaders on the ground [who] followed their training and moved quickly" with saving "many lives from this storm."

While the death toll could have been higher — 46 workers were in the building when the tornado struck — it's not clear whether that is due to training or luck.

The tornado destroyed roughly half the building. All the workers killed were on the building's south side, while all those who survived were on the north side. Had the tornado's course been slightly different, it's unlikely the north side would have fared any better than the south, since neither was reinforced in any way.

Grace Yan, a structural engineering professor, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the warehouse's "tilt-up" construction can easily collapse and was "not invented for resisting tornadoes."

In addition to Virden, who lived in Collinsville, Deandre S. Morrow, 28, of St. Louis, Missouri; Kevin D. Dickey, 62, of Carlyle; Clayton Lynn Cope, 29, of Alton; Etheria S. Hebb, 34, of St. Louis, Missouri; and Austin J. McEwen, 26, of Edwardsville, also lost their lives.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has opened an investigation into safety conditions at the warehouse, CNBC reported Monday.

President Biden, also on Monday, signed a state of emergency declaration for 13 Illinois counties in the path of the storm, authorizing federal aid and allowing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate relief efforts.

The counties included in the state of emergency are Bond, Cass, Coles, Effingham, Fayette, Jersey, Macoupin, Madison, Montgomery, Morgan, Moultrie, Pike and Shelby.