EDWARDSVILLE — A special Illinois task force on warehouse safety met for the first time Tuesday, taking testimony from a local fire chief and the family of one of the six people killed when a tornado struck an Amazon facility here more than a year-and-a-half ago.
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The testimony could influence how safety standards are reshaped at warehouses across the state.
“Our family was irrevocably broken that night,†Carla Cope, the mother of 29-year-old warehouse worker and tornado victim Clayton Cope, told task force members. She called on them to strengthen standards and prevent future deaths.
The 16-member Warehouse Safety Standards Task Force, appointed by state officials, aims to create recommendations to strengthen warehouse structural safety, boost resources for first responders and improve emergency policies and procedures of warehouse businesses, which employ about two million across the state, more than double that of a decade ago.
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“Those things should not have to be in competition with each other,†said state Rep. Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville, a member of the task force. “We don’t want a race to the bottom.â€
The task force on Tuesday met at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. Some of the testimony provided new details of the events of that night.
The tornado occurred on an unseasonably warm day in December 2021, first hitting Defiance, Missouri — killing a woman there — before skipping across the Mississippi River and touching down northwest of the intersection of Interstates 255 and 270 in Illinois. It then picked up strength, with winds around 150 mph, and struck the Amazon warehouse as an EF3 tornado.
Video from a nearby warehouse showed the moment when the tornado struck, where winds easily peeled off the roof like the lid of a tin can. Edwardsville fire Chief James Whiteford, who was on the scene that night, said the tornado sliced through the building, causing the 11-inch thick, 60,000-pound concrete walls to fall.
The warehouse was built to code in 2018 and leased to Amazon, then expanded from 650,000 square feet to 1.1 million in 2020. Experts have said the building’s tilt-up construction — which pours the walls on the ground and then lifts them into place — made it more vulnerable to damage or collapse during tornadoes.
But there are few regulations that require tornado shelters and none that require buildings to better withstand tornadoes, even though there is evidence that shelters save lives.
Whiteford, the fire chief, said Edwardsville sent all of its resources — one fire engine and two ambulances — when the first dispatch was issued. Amazon officials told them 80 people were working that night. An initial assessment of the scene, which typically takes a few minutes, took first responders up to 15 minutes because of the warehouse’s size.
“They’re like skyscrapers that are just laying on the side,†Whiteford said.
He described the chaos: Gas leaks. Vehicles thrown into the nearby retention ponds. Downed 345,000-volt power lines lying in the ponds and across I-270.
Then, another storm approached, forcing them to halt search and rescue efforts. One first responder stayed in the warehouse rubble with an injured worker, Whiteford said.
By 2 p.m. the next day, emergency workers had recovered all six bodies from bathrooms on the building’s southern side. K9s from another first responder group confirmed to authorities that no one else was left in the building.
Throughout the next month, Whiteford said they used sonar and drained the ponds to confirm no one had been in the water.
On Tuesday, Whiteford told the task force he had three recommendations: Increase funding to the Southern Illinois emergency responder group to improve resources they can use during future disasters. Work to create new building codes that allow for more affordable storm shelters to be built. And help small communities like Edwardsville with additional building inspectors or code enforcers.
The room was somber after Whiteford finished speaking. Members of the task force agreed to consider the chief’s recommendations as well as hear from the Masonry Institute of Southern Illinois about storm shelters in a future meeting. The Masonry Institute has a representative on the task force.
The group also agreed to hold future meetings in other parts of the state, including around the Joliet area, outside of Chicago, where there are numerous warehouses. No date has been set.
Amazon was not present at the meeting. The company has said that it wants to reopen the facility, which has been repaired, but has not established a timeline.
The state Department of Labor is overseeing the task force. Its recommendations are due to Gov. J.B. Pritzker by Jan. 1, 2025.
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