Kentucky candle factory staff with more than 100 workers on shift 'would be fired if they left as tornado bore down on them' leaving eight dead and ten missing

UK Daily Mail ^ | 12/13/2021 | James Gordon

[trashiscash]

Illinois is not considered tornado alley.You might want to change your handle because Rush would never agree with your ignorant comment.

[colorado tanker]

This is pretty effed-up if true.

Yep. When I was growing up in Kansas we took these warnings very seriously. I remember the great Topeka tornado. It looked like a giant had run a mile wide lawnmower through the city, flattening everything in that corridor. Horrendous destruction. Looked a lot like this town but in a bigger city.

[Scarlett156]

In reading the article, some of the (many) workers who got trapped in the factory when it collapsed had overheard folks asking to go home being told to get back to work, which they did, although some of them left.

I agree that going home might not have been the most advisable thing to do - it sounds like a real mess.

I was working in downtown Denver - right in the middle of Capitol Hill - when this happened in 1988: https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/colorado/denver/amazing-rare-footage-denver/ (Six tornadoes touched down)

I was working in a mental health center and - wouldn’t you know it? - my boss was worried about a client he had to see, a man who was on parole from another state, who had appeared in our MHC expressing paranoid ideation and asking to be hooked up with some resources. So my boss asked me to stick around. (Note: This same guy ended up killing a couple of people just a day or two later! My boss was right to be suspicious.)

So I was hanging out just outside my boss’s office with the doors open while he talked to this guy when the sirens started going off. Everyone started yelling and hollering. The building did have a basement but I recall that when I heard there were tornadoes visibly touching down I ran to the window - the client was standing in my boss’s office and he looked really confused, with waves of danger radiating from him. My boss was trying to get the guy out the door because (I could tell) he didn’t want him in the building’s basement.

So just about every employee there actually ran out into the parking lot to watch the tornadoes, I’m sorry to say. (Most of the clients who were on the premises went to the basement, showing more sense than the staff.)

We saw the one that messed up the EMW warehouse on the corner of Evans and Broadway and then my boss came hurrying outside and exclaimed, pointing: “That one’s over my house!” (He had a very nice house in a swank part of town.) We were all just amazed to see these multiple tornadoes all around us, but for some strange reason there was little wind, hail, rain, etc, at our location.

The one my boss said was over his house did strike his house, causing little damage to the structure but it tore a huge cypress tree that was in his front yard out by the roots. The streets were so littered with tree branches after that it took forever to clear.

(I may have told this story before on this forum; apologies if that is the case.)

[DannyTN]

The companies I worked for always took tornadoes warnings seriously and had designated safe spaces for employees to go to.

This company will be in a world of legal hurt if the allegations are true.

[HereInTheHeartland]

On 9-11, people in the towers were told by the experts to shelter in the place . Many wisely ignored this advice and got out.

Similar situation here it sounds like.

[roving]

Pretty sure my work wouldn’t let us leave either. We have places to head for in the plant in case of a tornado. They need to do head counts. If people left, others would risk their lives searching for them

[blackdog]

We have a factory with over 600 people, 250 on shift at any given time. (And contractors). Yes, if people walk off the job it's considered job abandonment. There are tornado / dangerous weather zone shelter areas in each building covering 87 acres with two railcar docks and four live fire steam boilers. Each area supervisor has a weather alert radio and facility security sounds the alarm if dangerous weather is approaching. Each person must be accounted for in those safe areas.

This seems to me like safety protocols weren't followed, most likely because it was night shift.

[roving]

If the building was on fire, you leave. That’s common sense. I wouldn’t have sheltered in place in the towers either

[VeniVidiVici]

Hmm. Stay in a concrete factory or negotiate a storm to get to a stick house.

I understand wanting to be home and protect my family, did it during hurricanes many times, but the factory seems to have been the better choice prior to getting hit.

[pierrem15]

Sounds like involuntary manslaughter charges for management and huge civil payouts.

[Flick Lives]

Thanks for posting. Great story.

[Theoria]

[EBH]

As an EHS manager, there would have been an osha required shelter in place location. Would have been tornado proof, likely not. Lawsuits will be coming and trigger more regulation

[Scarlett156]

Wow, very interesting! Thanks.

[parmamenian]

OSHA probably only concerned about their vaccination status.

[kiryandil]

So just about every employee there actually ran out into the parking lot to watch the tornadoes, I’m sorry to say.

Don't pet the bison.

[Scarlett156]

Mental health FTW.

[HamiltonJay]

Oh I don’t doubt it’s true…

Line managers have no real authority and a night shift I doubt anyone with real authority was around, so they refused to make any sort of call and just said keep working if he fired

[HereInTheHeartland]

“I wouldn’t have sheltered in place in the towers either“

Me either .
But the “experts” told them to.
That’s the point, there are times you say screw the experts and do what you need to do .

[longfellowsmuse]

These are adults that shouldn’t be told anything. Individuals have the autonomy to decide what is best for themselves not wait for someone else to tell them what that is