Let the lawsuits fly in Mayfield

[TC Talks]

Looks like the supervisors were more concerned with production than safety. I doubt they consulted lawyers before threatening firings...

MAYFIELD, Ky. — As a catastrophic tornado approached this city Friday, employees of a candle factory — which would later be destroyed — heard the warning sirens and wanted to leave the building. But at least five workers said supervisors warned employees that they would be fired if they left their shifts early.

For hours, as word of the coming storm spread, as many as 15 workers beseeched managers to let them take shelter at their own homes, only to have their requests rebuffed, the workers said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ke ... yY7vgwvfps

[Ben Zonia]

Let's not let Bezos off the hook. The Amazon Warehouses appear to me and others to be cheaply, quickly, and flimsily built, and not made to withstand tornadoes. OK if no people work there, or very few.

People no longer take tornadoes as seriously. After the Beecher Tornado in 1953, Michiganites took them very seriously for years after. But by circa 1968, Joni Mitchell stayed inside The Sippin Lizzard Coffee House during what was apparently an EF1 passing through Flint, which she describes in one of her biographies/autobiographies. About a mile away, the DJ at WFDF, Noble Gravelin, took cover in the basement, leaving a 45 in the end grooves for several minutes. He knew better.

With better forecasting, the specific areas likely to be hit are localized, and online radar is available 24/7. But pay attention and take cover, sooner rather than later, if you see something developing online or outside.

[Turkeytop]

I don't know what the law is in The US. But in Ontario, you can't sue your employer for on the job injury or death. You can only apply for Workers Comp.

[km1125]

Well, they could get sued either way. If they had evacuated the place and folks got caught by the tornado trying to get home and they got killed, somebody would sue the company anyway. Especially if the building remained standing.

I cannot imagine the costs that would be incurred (by everybody) if we had to make all buildings capable of withstanding a direct hit, even from an EF0.

[TC Talks]

Well, they could get sued either way. If they had evacuated the place and folks got caught by the tornado trying to get home and they got killed, somebody would sue the company anyway. Especially if the building remained standing.

I cannot imagine the costs that would be incurred (by everybody) if we had to make all buildings capable of withstanding a direct hit, even from an EF0.

Except they had plenty of warning (which they ignored about the H*** tornado traveling 200 miles right to them. If they had evacuated 20 minutes prior to the storm, they wouldn't be looking for bodies today.

I agree that Amazon is also going to need to deal with their management.

[km1125]

Did they have that much direct warning? Or was it "anywhere in the city" warning? I was surprised I didn't hear anyone make any comments about warning sirens, or seeing any reports on the TV that the tornado was headed their way. This is not specific to the candle factory, but anywhere in the town.

[craig11152]

No one can predict the exact route a Tornado will take over a distance of 200 miles.

[km1125]

No one can predict the exact route a Tornado will take over a distance of 200 miles.

Much less 5 miles!

[TC Talks]

Actually, they had 35 minutes warning based on NWS warning...

Every local TV station was warning people. Why do you think most people were in shelter except those working?

All this will come out in a lawsuit.

[MWmetalhead]

Being in a car as a tornado bears down at night is a terrible idea.

The central question in Mayfield and Edwardsville is whether the plants had proper tornado safety procedures in place, whether those procedures were followed, and if those communities received adequate warning lead time.

No building with a long span roof is designed to withstand strong tornadoes. Warehouses, big box stores, auditoriums, shopping malls and the like are all terrible places to be during a tornado *if* you are not in a designated shelter area within those structures.

Given its building type, I actually thought the Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville held up decently. When one examines the external wall materials, you'll notice that most of the surface area of the exterior walls are made of concrete block. Many generic warehouses have far less durable sheet metal. So, to question the quality of construction seems silly to me. The building took a direct hit from 150 mph swirling winds. WTF do you expect to happen?

In Mayfield, the preliminary rating is also EF-3 but some believe the final rating will be EF-4. Injury and fatality risk is pretty high in an EF-4 storm if you are not underground or in a specially designed tornado shelter. Remember, EF ratings are assigned after a storm, not in advance of a storm.

Again, the focus should be on if the supervisors took appropriate and reasonable action to protect the safety of their employees once warnings were issued.

To completely cancel a shift due to a tornado watch (not warning) as a couple employees suggested should've happened would be excessively precautionary, in my opinion.

[Turkeytop]

I would think that whenever building codes were updated, existing structures would have been grandfathered in.

[MotorCityRadioFreak]

The fact that there were no tornado shelters on site speaks volumes as to negligence to me and most people picked for a jury. Keep in mind that these were long track tornado events so….

[MWmetalhead]

The Edwardsville, IL tornado was on the ground for only five minutes per the National Weather Service; definitely NOT long track.

The Mayfield, KY tornado certainly was a long track tornado, although it was not on the ground for "200 miles" (continuously) as some news outlets are suggesting. Instead, the parent cell generated multiple tornadoes over its life cycle.

Remember, even the vast majority of SCHOOLS in tornado alley do not have certified storm shelters, even recently constructed schools.

[km1125]

MW makes some great points, on both the Mayfield building and the Amazon building.

I also wonder who knew what just prior to the tornado hitting. I think in several of the work facilities I've been in, there was no formal "tornado warning" mechanism in place. No one was monitoring a weather radio. The only way we would have known if something was imminent, for the most part, was if individuals got texts on their phones and escalated it around the facility. At some places we did have a "network operations facility" that did track weather because it would drive network outages and some of us were in the loop on where outages were occurring. That might have tipped us off enough to escalate a concern. The only staffed buildings we had that were hardened for weather events were in hurricane zones and, quite frankly, was just to protect people but to have some business continuity if a hurricane hit.

I think I mentioned earlier in the thread that I didn't notice any one of the interviewees mention anything about hearing tornado warning sirens. There was one video clip from one of the locations (but I don't know which one, could have been in any state) where you could actually hear a siren. I wonder how many people really knew they were in the direct path of a tornado, not just in the general area.

[tapeisrolling]

You don't think of Kentucky as being in 'Tornado Alley' but the climate is changing and we are not ready for some of the changes like..
https://unsungscience.com/news/tornado- ... not-ready/
The 'alley' is moving and the numbers don't lie. It falls on the local and State building codes to come to grips with the safety of workers.