Thomas Dewalt, an Amazon driver, describes what he saw when he arrived at the Edwardsville warehouse five minutes after a severe storm hit, collapsing the roof and part of the wall.
Mr. DeWalt: I just wanted to tell you (and all Amazon drivers and workers) that you are appreciated. Thank you for all you do, and thanks for shedding light on this story.
@@thomasdewalt3895 @thomas dewalt and from my family also, thank you for shedding light on this and thank God he was covering you. We can't get out much normally for financial reasons and use Amazon to get things we otherwise wouldn't be able to and when we experience issues your team is very kind and helpful and we thank God for you all. Business issues aside, we are very thankful for the service and compassionate interactions you share with us, it really means a lot. Thank God many were not at the facility and we pray that all are comforted and that your family churches are blessed to step up and help any of you in need at this time. God bless you and keep you in Jesus name amen. 🙏❣️😊
J McClain Yes, by all means, thank your fictional sky daddy who killed people by letting this happen in the first place. Makes perfect sense. *_Oh, wait, NO, IT REALLY DOESN'T._* Good grief, man. Do you even HEAR yourself?
Just seeing the amount of destruction of what the tornadoes in this state did, I'm incredibly lucky that my job takes weather very seriously. Anytime a tornado warning is issued we are required to stop working and head into our tornado shelter basement until the storm has passed. This should apply to EVERY BUISNESS.
@@lesliejoana9153 Everybody should watch last night’s Weather Brains - look for it here on RU-vid. They talked about all of that. When a company has about a one in a quadrillion chance of getting hit like that, it’s hard to get them to put a lot of money into shelters or shutting down business on a busy Friday night right before Christmas. As usual, the forecasting was terrific, but getting people to comprehend the actual danger they’re in and what to do about it is a WHOLE ‘nuther ballgame.
@@plane_guy6051 Amen!!! Thank you!!! What is the point of being in shock??? Amen!!! What shall be shall be...one better be walking by "FAITH" in the Holy God and "His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ for "He" has the keys to death, hell and the grave!!! Amen!!! For whatever is not of "Faith" in "Him" is sin/thoughts of foolisness/UNRIGHTEOUSNESS...Amen!!! Never ..the...less Lord Jesus come on through Lord, come on through...
@@thomasdewalt3895 I can't even imagine. Ignore all of these crazy people posts cause I know you have to feel a certain type of way. Praying things are looking up for you now.
I saw the tornado about 100 feet away as it approached Sand road, exploded power lines and carried debris about 3/4 of a mile east of the Amazon warehouse, close enough to see it was rotating counter-clockwise. I was driving in my car and high tailed it south till I crossed 270, found some low ground to shelter until the worst of it passed. Pieces of apparently the building were strewn across the road, I hope the many homes in the path are all OK!
Not sure how big some of the spinners or tornados can get but when they come around they basically pick up and toss stuff all over the place. i only seen them in news reports or movies but they can really throw anything like miles away i guessing as it run through areas at anytime.
@@aegisreflector1239 if u ever worked at Amazon you’ll know packages are more important than your life cause if they don’t make it out on time Amazon has to pay so they rather save a few followers and risk your life cause you we are replaceable
@@a1fbgdennis Yes i know. All these gigantic multinational corporations are scumy like that. To this day iv never even bought anything from amazon(although i have bought things from sellers on eBay before). We need to start learning how to live without big tech
This is traumatizing. I can't imagine how scary this was seeing life on my mind right before your eyes. I'm glad this man is safe. Again, prayers going up in all directions.
Glad you escaped injury or death. Your interview was calm, professional and very important as a testimony in the weeks and months ahead. It is critical to have responsible, reliable folk who can bear witness on behalf of co workers. This will change your life, before vs after. Be a force for changes for the better for all workers. Mercy to all the victims and families. God bless!
That was my last job 😳😳😳 Never really took tornadoes too seriously until this happened. RIP to everyone that passed, it’s horrifying to think of the 6 people who died and their last moments
Glad this young man was safe, thoughts with those family’s that weren’t as lucky! I’m so sorry. Makes me so sad these people were just at work, doing good for their families, and this….😔
It is easy to get mad when things go wrong and you get delayed but sometimes that delay could save your life. If this man had not had to backtrack he would have been there among the injured or the dead.
Even with the weather centers hazardous/dangerous approaching weather warnings, Amazon was still sending out and requiring their employees to report to work? WOW!
It’s a tornado, they come up in minutes! What do you expect Amazon or anyone else to do! You are blaming Amazon like they are the only company in Kentucky and Illinois with workers on the job! These Is Mother Nature you can control were and when it hits. This driver got there 5 minutes after it hit, so even that close to work he didn’t know it was happening! Amazon made every effort to get these people to a protected area when they we’re alerted, I suppose you would have handled it better, because your so smart!
@@jeffrme u sound like a bot every job I ever worked at told us to stay home during bad weather all of those companies should be sued but can’t cause it was the workers fault for coming knowing it’s a warning nobody put a gun to their head and told them to
Please since you are the smartest person in the world and know way more about storms, please call every company in the world and let them know exactly when storms are going to hurt people so we never have to worry about tornadoes again! Your blaming Amazon for this is so asinine I wish they would read your post and sue you for Slander! NO ONE NEW THAT A TORNADO WAS COMING!
People bug out for any reason, they all can sit and be quiet till all this stuff gets sortd lol. i mean who knows what packages got taking away by the spinner at time so i can see all orders are on hold till stuff can be fixed and sent later.
What a horrific mess. This is a devistating event, and one of the biggest natural disasters in many years. Prayers to all the families still waiting for notice of loved ones that maybe injured or deceased. To all 1st responders our prayers are with you too as you face this tragedy.
@@sixfigureskibum you've never been in a tornado, have you? Have you seen the rest of the state?? Even the strongest of buildings have trouble standing up to tornadic winds. ESPECIALLY when they receive a direct hit from the tornado.
@@asholesmith2014 1986 in Michigan one ripped the hell out of everything when we had gone to town shopping. Drove through it . Fact remains this was the largest tornadoe ever and the one I experienced was in augest when they are supposed to happen. Tbs I grew up hearing grandma tell about fence posts impaled clean through by chicken feathers. But besides regular tornadoes, when I was helirapeler fire fighter I initial attacked a full fire tornadoe yes ground to sky over 300 feet 9f flames at base and 3000 feet of spinning hell
Most importantly are the workers and human lives! Material things can be replaced human lives cannot. He is blessed to be alive. Prayers to all! ✝️🙏😞❤️✝️🕊
I was about 12 minutes away sitting watching the lightning…Mother Nature is a beast. Hope all the employees are taken care of,especially with the holiday season here.
The original count was 40 to 50 dead and 150 buried alive or injured ! Obviously its worse ! This young man your interviewing is really good guy ! Probably still in shock! Im praying for everyone ! These families are going to need help ! Especially , at the Holidays ! I hope you guys stay in this and follow up with lost ones families or those injured so they get the support they All need!
This was very helpful, thank you! Apparently not as many people in the building as I thought, so that’s a good thing. What a nightmare storm! My heart goes out! 💜
@@fishingpinky3165 Your right...Thank you for correcting Brian....God is with everyone ...This kid just happened too have the better end of the stick thats all.
@@abe_linc02 Brian did not need correcting, Quarter Horse did. Just because he thanked God that he was with this man doesn't mean God was not with those who died and suffered. He was.
@@fishingpinky3165 That is not what Brian meant. God was with those who suffered by helping them to endure and he was with the dead ones as they have the hope of the resurrection. Please do research so you won't make disrespectful, inaccurate comments.
I wonder if this is the same Amazon warehouse that was keeping their workers on site during a shutdown? I was watching videos yesterday from Amazon workers in a warehouse. They weren't allowed to leave and were playing games whilst everything was shut down. I really hope its not the same warehouse...those workers I saw yesterday wanted to leave and go home🥺💔
People see this should read up about another long track Tornado that struck back on March 18, 1925 which is the Tristate Tornado which traveled through three states Missouri, Illinois and Indiana which hit 13 counties and causing catastropic damage in 19 plus communites with complete devastation along the way killing 695 people which was a record for a single Tornado along with 234 deaths reported in Murphysboro alone and another 33 deaths reported at the Desoto school which was a record for a single community from such a disaster along with injuring thousands of lives 2027 injuries and 15,000 homes destroyed with fierce F5 winds in excess of 300 mph,.A reading of 28.87 which was the lowest recorded reading in history on the barograph trace at the Old Ben coal mine in West Frankfort Illinois. A Tornado reportly being a mile wide that carved a 219 mile path with a record speed of 73 mph set between Gorham and Murphysboro. In seeing the damage here this was very similiar damage done by the 1925 Tristate Tornado and it wouldnt be surprise to see them increasing the wind strength of that Tornado that traveled through Mayfield F4 to F5 with winds around 240 TO 275 mph given the history of this being on the ground for that long along with the damage it caused obliterating everything in its path this would indicate the strength of the Tornado was alot stronger than an EF3 tornado which they said had top winds of 155 mph and bare in mind back in 1925 there was no advance warning systems in place nor any dopplar radar like they have today which may as it appears have saved alot more lives
I know the feeling of the timing in getting a package delivered vs getting back to the warehouse. It makes all the difference in the world. Thank God you are Safe and May God Cover You and All the Workers and Families at the facility and town that was hit by the storm. Your Fellow MD Amazonian.🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
❤️ to everyone going through these tornados~take care of yourselves and thank you for all of your hard work, every day, I am very grateful for you and thankful for your hard work, love and prayers. ❤️.
God was with you man. He is great, He is good. You survived for a reason, keep doing Good work. Prayers for you and your coworkers, and your families ♥️✝️.
As a fellow Amazonion I want to say thank you I know how hard we all work. God bless you all. I'm in the middle of the tornado valley in Texas so like we have very strict shelter in place drills. Many people don't take it seriously. But it is a very real thing.
I think it's safe to say I speak for everyone at FC DAL3, when I say, we're thinking about you and hope you guys and gals are able to get back on your feet soon. We hope the injured a speedy recovery and our deepest sympathies for friends lost.
This was outside of St. Louis. Fortunately there's no homes near the warehouses. Most of the damage around here is up in St. Charles. Pales in comparison to what happened in KY.
You would think they would of shut down . When the temp is this warm in Dec. and you see a wall of red and yellow on the radar you can almost bank on trouble.
We had an urgent training tonight at Amazon before I could get online they told us to NOT talk to media and gave us scripted responses to direct them to our PR team. This guy will probably be fired shortly after this interview unfortunately.
🙏 Prayers for all who work there and all who were affected by this tragedy. Hopefully no ones lives were lost in this collapse. May Yahweh Keep Them protected.
It's so sad, prayers for everyone. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 Why would they have their co-workers working, when the weather news said it was gonna be high wind & etc. Companies don't care, as long as they have a good numbers on their products. 🕯🤷🏼♀️💰 They don't care about their safety js
What do you expect... Look how amazon builds these cookie cutter warehouses with barely any framing all over America just to house all of our precious Chinese products
That building wasn't built very well then. We had a tornado hit the chrysler transmission plant in kokomo in. Several yrs. Ago it devastated kokomo, but we just kept on working, it took some chillers off the roof,but thats it.
That means the winds weren’t strong enough to do significant damage, the storm that hit this building knocked over steel beams as if they were nothing! It takes some serious winds to do that kind of damage, a high end EF3, EF4 EF5 type of tornadoes can do this to even a well constructed facility
First off, it's estimated that this particular tornado could have been an EF4, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it classified higher later. Very few structures hold up well against that magnitude of tornado. Secondly, I want to commend you on your dismissal of these peoples' particular experience last night, based on the superiority of your employer's buildings compared with ( your assumption of ) the inferiority of theirs. Good job. Way to empathize with others.
First off, I don't doubt that the building was built bare minimum to code. But it was also a very strong tornado. Unlike the one that hit your building, this one looks to have been an ef4-5 rating. Only building I know to survive a direct hit from one of those with minimal damage is a hospital and even that will lose windows and even get shifted off it's foundation.....
It's so weird how cause and effect works for some people. This man probably could of caught all those red lights and was like why me. But this time it could of saved his life catching all those red lights. or if a package was giving him a hard time and had to spend 5 more minutes making sure it went to where it needed to be and at that moment your feeling like the things i got to do for this job. But if he got back 20 minutes before and not being held up it could of been bad for him. I'm not saying that is what happened just a what if. the next time you are late for work and get mad cause you stuck at a light for 2 minutes. that chain reaction could benefit you. then again it can also be the reason for suffering. You just never know.
Yk this is something that’s still running through my mind because I actually was mad that I did backtrack on a package I already delivered and also the first time I did that but apparently saved my life
So to explain we are a third party contract company that works with Amazon so we all work for them and do the same thing but just under different times
Don't worry Amazon has many locations packages will still arrive.. I am sorry for the loss of life and this is a tragedy all of it in these difficult times.
