Tornado

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.

The company “placed profits first instead of the safety of our son and the other families who lost loved ones,” said the mother of Austin McEwen.

Six Amazon employees were killed in an Edwardsville warehouse during a tornado, raising questions about whether the company did enough to help them.

The six people were killed when a tornado hit an Amazon warehouse, causing it to collapse.

St. Charles County officials estimate damages will exceed $3.5 million.

Missouri and Illinois have few state regulations directly related to tornado safety. Some elected officials are now questioning whether current building requirements are enough to protect residents from powerful storms.

Local agencies are already examining if there were any structural issues with the building and how a tornado’s trajectory may have affected parts of the warehouse.

Officers from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration have been at the Amazon warehouse northeast of the Interstate 255/270 interchange since Saturday.

The same storm system that hit Edwardsville and ravaged areas in Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee first reached tornado status near the community of Defiance.