Amazon declines to say when workers were warned. Six died.
Jeff Bezos did some damage control Saturday night, saying he was "heartbroken" over the tragedy at one of his Amazon plants, where at least 6 people died as a tornado ripped through the facility ... this after being radio silent about the deaths as he celebrated his latest flight into space.
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The company has not said how many people were in the building not far from St. Louis when the tornado hit at 8:35 p.m. Friday - part of a swarm of twisters across the Midwest and the South that leveled entire communities. Authorities said they didn't have a full count of employees because it was during a shift change and there were several part-time employees.
Both sides of the warehouse used to prepare orders for delivery collapsed inward and the roof caved, Edwardsville Fire Chief James Whiteford said at a Saturday news conference.
Authorities received reports of workers being trapped and the fire unit arrived within six minutes, according to Whiteford. Police helped pull people from the rubble. While 45 employees survived, six people were killed and a seventh person was airlifted to a hospital.
Whiteford said crews would search the rubble for several days, but considering the significant damage authorities didn't expect to find further survivors.
The damage was extensive; the structures steel support pillars were exposed after the walls and roof caved.
"These walls are made out of 11-inch thick concrete, and they're about 40 feet tall, so a lot of weight from that came down," Whiteford said.
A union representing retail employees that has pushed to organize Amazon employees blasted the company for "dangerous labor practices" for having employees work during the severe weather.
"Time and time again Amazon puts its bottom line above the lives of its employees," Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union Requiring, said in a statement. "Requiring workers to work through such a major tornado warning event as this was inexcusable."
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An Amazon worker at an Illinois warehouse who was killed in a roof collapse when a tornado hit was told to stay there until the storm passed, the New York Post reports. Larry Virden, 46, texted his girlfriend of 13 years that “Amazon won’t let me leave until after the storm blows over,” she told the paper. The text was reportedly sent roughly 16 minutes before the tornado reportedly touched down. Cherie Jones, Virden’s partner, said the couple lived 13 minutes away from the warehouse. Jones said she didn’t fault the company for Virden’s death, adding, “But it’s that what-if situation: What if they would have let him leave? He could have made it home.” Virden was a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq. “When he was over there, he made his peace with the maker, so he was prepared to die,” Jones said. “But we didn’t want him to die now.” Six employees at the warehouse have been confirmed dead.