Pontoon Beach

“You have to get the foundation laid and then go from there,” said Lynn Cope, whose 29-year-old son, Clayton, was killed by an Edwardsville tornado in December 2021.

Following an Edwardsville tornado that killed six Amazon employees, the Illinois Warehouse Safety Task Force made preliminary recommendations on Tuesday.

Historically, the Granite City courtroom had also heard cases from nearby communities like Madison, Pontoon Beach and Venice.

Formed after the 2021 tornado that killed six Amazon employees in Edwardsville, the task force is required to submit the report to the Illinois General Assembly by Jan. 1, 2025.

While the exterior of the warehouse was nearly complete about a year after the tornado hit, construction crews have since worked on the interior of the delivery station.

The federal workplace safety agency has been investigating the deaths of six people at the facility since a tornado hit it in December.

There aren’t local or statewide rules in Illinois ensuring workers in the nearly 30 warehouses surrounding the Amazon facility that collapsed in December will be any safer the next time a tornado strikes the St. Louis region.

The average estimated cost of a new warehouse building in Edwardsville was more than $16 million in the past five years. A tornado shelter adds less than 2% to that overall cost.