16 votes

'Inexcusable': Amazon under fire after warehouse collapse kills at least six

3 comments

  1. [2]
    Seven
    Link
    One of the workers who was killed reportedly texted his girlfriend "Amazon won't let us leave" before the tornado struck.

    One of the workers who was killed reportedly texted his girlfriend "Amazon won't let us leave" before the tornado struck.

    5 votes
    1. mat
      Link Parent
      About ten minutes before, wasn't it? In which case he absolutely shouldn't have been leaving, because a tornado big enough to wreck a warehouse with 11 inch thick walls is easily big enough to...

      About ten minutes before, wasn't it? In which case he absolutely shouldn't have been leaving, because a tornado big enough to wreck a warehouse with 11 inch thick walls is easily big enough to throw his car off the road or drop a building on him. I don't know exactly what they were told, but it does matter - there's a world of difference between "don't leave, you have to keep working" and "don't leave, it's not safe to be outside"

      I'm not sure how true this is but I saw a few people saying that guy was a driver, not a floor worker. So Amazon telling him not to leave is the exact opposite of trying to make him keep working! There was a tornado warning in effect. Not leaving was what people were supposed to do. The question of whether Amazon's tornado shelter was up to standard is a slightly different thing but purely from a heartless accounting point of view, building not to local codes is a pain in the arse for insurance, so it's very possible they didn't cut that particular corner.

      Look, I hate Amazon for many reasons and a lot about them really, really needs to change - but from what I can tell after reading a couple of news reports, they pretty much did the right thing here, it was just shitty luck that a big tornado touched down on top of their warehouse. If those workers had been at home and the tornado landed on their houses instead, they'd have been just as dead or injured.

      This reddit thread has lots of commentary and links to other sources and while I don't doubt Amazon are going full guns on the PR for this disaster, I'm not sure they're all that interested in astroturfing reddit to quite the degree they'd need to for every post to be propaganda.

      10 votes
  2. Nepenthaceae
    Link
    I ranted about this for a good while and in my rant I used the word "philanthropist". Now, english is my second language, so I googled "philanthropist" to check my spelling. Guess who was looking...

    I ranted about this for a good while and in my rant I used the word "philanthropist".
    Now, english is my second language, so I googled "philanthropist" to check my spelling.
    Guess who was looking right at me on that search results page?

    I am utterly disgusted. I don't understand why people keep buying shit from this fully evil entity.

    2 votes