You clearly have some preconceived grudge towards Amazon or any big employer. They didn't die because they were "working to death." They died because the building collapsed. They deserve scrutiny for that that, but so do the building codes.

I've nothing against big employers, I think the more resources a company has, the bigger their responsibility is to their employees to keep them safe at work.

The fact remains that they were not working while the tornados struck, yet you claim that they were being "worked to death". Sounds like a preconceived grudge to me.

This is a reply to both you and the person above you.

There aren't building codes that can stop a tornado, not unless you want military style bunkers everywhere. Tornado's have approx double the windspeed of hurricanes.

In tornado prone places life doesn't stop when there is danger nearby. Instead people go to the safest place they can, knowing it can only help for glancing blows, or weak tornado's.

I quote:

"Thus, to make a structure totally tornado-proof requires that the structure be designed to withstand both the impact of a one-ton boulder being hurled at it at 100-150 miles per hour as well as wind loads of 300 mph or more. This means you need a structure made out of either foot-thick reinforced concrete or two to three inch thick solid steel armor plate. Doors must be solid steel with reinforced frames and extra strong locking mechanisms (otherwise the storm will just suck the door open). No windows."

But not all tornadoes are F5. Two percent of tornadoes are F4/F5. The tornado that hit the Amazon warehouse was an F3 with peak speeds of 150 mph. It's hard to say though what the wind speed was when it hit amazon.

And while most buildings won't completely survive an F3, many safety plans call for the use an existing basement or bathrooms. Some architectures will reinforce an interior hallway.

My point is that employers in tornado prone areas should have sections of the building that are sufficiently safe from tornados. As far, as I can tell, Amazon was following the rules, but labor activists are blaming Amazon for doing say, saying instead that they should have let them leave.

They did have a shelter area. It wasn't enough, most can't survive a direct hit, it's just a fact of life in that area.

And if you leave every time there a tornado in the area you don't work for many months of the year. Instead you go to the shelter when it's very close, which is what they did (10 to 15 minutes before).

Don't listen to activists, they usually aren't interested in the employees, rather they just want to criticize the "external enemy". Offtopic but I've noticed most "environmentalists" are the same way, they aren't interested in improving the environment, rather they are just misanthropes.

Yes, we all know that all social and labor progress was achieved by employers by the kindness of their heart. Those activists just complain and nothing progressive in our society was achieved by them.

Nobody suggested making an amazon warehouse tornado-proof?

You don't build a house to be tornado-proof. You have a tornado shelter. You build it at ground level with sloped sides, or below ground.

Cargo ships have life boats, so do oil rigs. If you've got a warehouse with hundreds of people in an area with lots of tornadoes, you build tornado shelters sufficient to accommodate them.

Cost of doing business in an area where the only reason you were doing business was likely cheap labor and land.

Daddy Bezos has more than enough bucks to build a tornado shelter or two at his warehouses.

Sigh. There WAS a tornado shelter. And they went there. But tornado shelters can't survive direct hits (which are rare).

Are you interested in the facts of the case, or just criticizing anything and everything?

If it's underground, how is there a direct hit... did the tornado Tunnel down?

You are thinking fallaciously in terms of absolutes. Any shelter is better than nothing against a tornado breaking your bones with thrown debris or outright impailing you with a 2x4. A shelter which would suffer only minor damage indirectly but would collapse on a direct hit is superior to nothing.

Seems pretty clear you’d hate Amazon no matter what they do?

Honestly I like a ton of what Amazon does. AWS is great. Their shopping platform, I'm broadly a big fan of. I'm not a fan of union busting, employee smooshing and pee bottles. The latter two I suspect would go away if they stopped doing the first, but I digress. I didn't think that'd be contentious but here we are.

The amount of people that don't know what you are suppose to do during a tornado is mind boggling...

There's a difference between not knowing what your are supposed to be doing during a tornado in your home, and what you're supposed to do in an Amazon warehouse. In Illinois, commercial warehouses aren't required to have tornado shelters.

If you grow up in Illinois or anywhere around the midwest, there's a high likelihood you've been through a tornado drill in your childhood.

Well they did have a shelter area. My point was the people that followed the tragedy with horrible tornado advice in order to score political points.

But was it broadcasted to the workers when the tornado warning happened?

Site safety plans typically include things about tornado warnings particularly in Illinois, where tornados are common. It's also common to have a site wide announcement system in case of fire or tornado warnings instructing people where to go and what to do.

Site safety plans typically exist to prevent lawsuits in the first place.