EDWARDSVILLE — Amazon’s warehouse where a tornado killed six employees a year ago Saturday has nearly been rebuilt.
“There’s a lot of mixed emotions this weekend,” Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said Friday. What happened.
“It’s a really sad and depressing time right now,” she said. Amazon management doesn’t know exactly when the new warehouse will open, but Nantel said there will be no shelter.Critics wondered why the old warehouse didn’t have better safety measures I wanted a new change.
Federal guidelines from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and local building codes do not require shelters, Nantel said.Instead, Amazon is taking other steps, such as training, to keep its employees safe, she said. We taught them how to respond to extreme weather and hired meteorologists.
“We want to do more than that in the areas where we have the most control and where we are most confident to make a difference,” Nantel said. Just because shelters aren’t being built doesn’t mean there aren’t conversations.”
The meteorologist has proven useful during this year’s southern hurricane season, Nantel said.
Amazon leases destroyed warehouses. The owner must restore the facility to its previous state under contract with Amazon. For the most part it works just like the old building.
Will Bauer
/
st louis public radio
However, Edwardsville’s building codes will change in 2023.
Fire Chief James Whiteford, who helped coordinate the response to the tornado ravages, said the city has adopted the 2021 International Building Code, although the new rules do not include wind shelters.
Under the new regulations, warehouse walls must withstand winds of 114 miles per hour for three seconds, Whiteford said. Old rules required walls to withstand 90 mph. Last year his EF-3 Tornado had wind speeds of 136-165 mph.
“They want the building to be stronger,” Whiteford said. “But I’m not prepared to put it in a wind shelter that I know of.”
Another change being made involves replacing the Edwardsville Fire Department’s radio. Whiteford said an old radio caused problems last year when the battery died.
Also, first responders were unable to communicate with many agencies in the field on their outdated radios. The new radios purchased by the city, but not yet delivered, are intended to help the fire department prepare for a similar eventuality.
Legislation and litigation
Illinois House of Representatives passed the bill earlier this year This creates a task force to help workers identify and report workplace safety concerns and violations. Rep. Katie Stuart (D, Edwardsville), the bill’s lead manager, said she hopes the bill will pass the Illinois Senate and be signed by the governor. early next year.
“I believe every worker deserves a safe and healthy work environment and I am committed to being an advocate for worker safety and well-being,” Stuart said in a statement.
Attorney Jack Cassiato Family of Austin McEwen, one of six murdered Amidst the collapse, he said his case would soon enter the discovery stage.
The lawsuit alleges the retail giant endangered workers by ignoring severe weather warnings and insisting they work until minutes before a tornado hit a building. Casicato said it plans to fire key Amazon executives in both Edwardsville and Seattle. A Chicago-based attorney said he hopes the case will go to trial by early 2024.
The goal of Mary-Kate Brown, deputy director of Madison County’s Emergency Management Agency, is to prevent a disaster like this from happening again. However, as weather patterns change, large storms appear to be becoming more common.
“We’re talking about the tornado that happened in December,” she said.
Not only was the timing rare, Brown said he had never seen anything like it before. The tornado was the first time Brown had dealt with multiple fatalities since joining the division in 2009.
“The amount of devastation was just insane,” she said. “It was definitely there in terms of the total destruction inflicted on the building compared to other destruction and stuff we’ve seen in other storms over the years.”
Whiteford, who started working in the city almost 27 years ago as a fire and paramedic, said the tornado was also new to him.
“It’s traumatic to deal with something like that,” he said.
