Amazon Employees in Collapsing Warehouse Told to Shelter in Bathrooms
- Tornado drills were rarely performed in the Amazon warehouse that collapsed, employees told Insider.
- Shelter areas were bathrooms and break rooms, rather than built-for-purpose structures.
- Amazon employees said they didn’t think the company took extreme weather seriously.
As the Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, started to collapse on December 11, the workers set a challenge: Get to one end of the warehouse, which was the length of five football fields, and shelter in the break room or bathroom.
These were the designated tornado safe zones, Amazon employees told Insider. They couldn’t fit all of the staff in there, but that was the only choice they had because leaving through an EF3 category tornado with wind speed estimated at 136 mph to 165 mph wasn’t an option.
Six people died in the warehouse collapse, which left families grieving and traumatized those who survived the destruction.
The city
