Here’s OSHA’s timeline from the night a tornado hit an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville
Here’s a timeline released on Tuesday by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration of what happened on the evening of Dec. 10 when a tornado killed six people at an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville:
About 7:45 p.m.: Amazon delivery drivers and Amazon personnel begin receiving severe weather watch notifications from the National Weather Service on their personal and Amazon-issued cellphones.
8 p.m.: Severe storms entered the area and Amazon management began notifying contracted delivery dispatchers of the severe storms and for them to decide if delivery drivers would be returning to the warehouse or seek shelter in their current locations in the field.
8:06 p.m. and 8:16 p.m.: Electronic warning systems delivered storm and tornado warnings to the site near the intersection of Interstate 255 and Interstate 270 via a web-based application.
8:06 p.m.: The on-site Amazon manager and an assistant began going through the warehouse, giving notifications of the warnings and to get employees moving to the north end of the building where the designated shelter-in-place was located.
8:18 p.m.: Edwardsville tornado sirens sounded in the area.
About 8:27 p.m.: A tornado touched down in front of the warehouse and cut through the building, moving from west to east and lifted just after it reached the property line.
Ten people sought shelter in the southern end of the warehouse, according to OSHA Area Director Aaron Priddy, who conducted the OSHA investigation.
“The south end of the building is a large, indoor parking, loading and unloading area and the restroom in this section of the facility is located along the western wall and was the only self-supporting structure within this large parking … area,” Priddy said during a news conference on Tuesday.
“The tornado, when it struck, it struck the facility right at this restroom’s location on the western side, lifting the roof of the building and collapsing the western wall onto the restroom.”
The eastern wall fell outward into the parking lot.
Of the 10 people in the restroom, six died, one was critically injured and three were trapped with minor injuries and rescued by first-responders. Others in the warehouse gathered on the north end of the building and were not injured.
Here are the six people who died in the tornado:
Clayton Lynn Cope, 29, of Alton; Kevin D. Dickey, 62, of Carlyle; Etheria S. Hebb, 34, of St. Louis; Austin J. McEwen, 26, of Edwardsville; DeAndre Morrow, 28, of St. Louis; and Larry E. Virden, 46, of Collinsville.
