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> You can only take so many precautions when tornadoes are in the neighborhood, because although the devastation where one touches down is severe, the area is l

> You can only take so many precautions when tornadoes are in the neighborhood, because although the devastation where one touches down is severe, the area is limited and the path is unpredictable. One of those precautions is to not make your employees come in to work.

jandrewrogers 5y ago
The employees are no safer at home than at work. Tornados like this one are a statistical risk you take by living in that part of the planet. We can't engineer practical structures that can survive them. The only mitigation is to live somewhere that doesn't have severe tornados.
- imglorp 5y ago
  > The employees are no safer at home than at work. Yes but if they're at work, the employer is responsible for their basic safety. Asking them to sit in a sheet-metal-on-slab building during an EF3 storm is neglectful. Sending them home to shelter with their families, whatever they do there, would maybe have been the better plan.
  - treis 5y ago
    Why? From the images I've seen it's not like the houses survived.
    - MrStonedOne 5y ago
      The houses have basements, the factory floors do not. The house does not need to survive for the humans in it to be safer then if they were in a sheet metal box with no basement.
      - treis 5y ago
        A basement isn't tornado proof when the house above it is collapsing. It looks like ~90% of the workers survived which doesn't strike me as much different than those in homes that took a direct hit.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- dragontamer 5y ago
  We can engineer bunkers and safe houses though, right? There's a question of whether or not its worth it, especially the maintenance costs. But if tornadoes in the region only give 15 minutes of warning, then a very strong "safehouse" of some kind is probably the best option. Maybe the group would get trapped in the safehouse and be nearly starving after 2 or 3 days. But the rescuers might find them in time? ------- I'm not necessarily saying that its easy to build a 110-person bunker. But if you have 110 workers, then surely that's something you need to consider as a preventative / safety measure?
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    They had a tornado shelter, as would any significantly sized workplace in the midwest. We will find out if it was as good as it was supposed to be in the investigation.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      With over 100 found alive, it sounds like they did the right thing here. The devastation is awful but at least they got out with their lives. They can rebuild.
  - themaninthedark 5y ago
    You wouldn't want a 110 bunker, you want 4 or 5 30 person bunkers. The building was roughly 340'x300', if the shelter was in the center the longest inside distance would be 200' but they also had material storage outside, up to 380' away as the crow flies(aka. gonna be longer). They will be literally running for their lives but Bob is 45 and has been smoking since he was 15. Jim is in a wheelchair.
  - captainredbeard 5y ago
    Dude: when the people from a region tell you that your expectations about preventing tragedy are unreasonable, why do you continue to argue with their firsthand knowledge? Do you think you bring something novel or noteworthy to the table?
- MrStonedOne 5y ago
  >The employees are no safer at home than at work. I think that should be up to the employees to decide, not their manager, and sure as hell not you.
zdragnar 5y ago
Tornados come and go quickly. Storms capable of producing tornados don't always do so, and those that do produce them only in small areas compared to where they are actually capable of producing them. Having your employees stay home doesn't help at all. Many of them will be living in the same danger zone, and in fact many will be living in buildings that are less capable of withstanding a tornado.
- DnDGrognard 5y ago
  But they are not all in the same building which reduces the risk collectively.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    Yes, but if the tornado had missed the factory building, being concentrated there could have been a benefit.
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    Not even close. Tornados hitting trailer parks typically come with much higher death tolls than the 8-16 from hitting this building.
    - DnDGrognard 5y ago
      Probably should not have "trailer parks" in a tornado zone - in any event a trailer park could have tornado shelters.
- MrStonedOne 5y ago
  >Having your employees stay home doesn't help at all. Many of them will be living in the same danger zone, and in fact many will be living in buildings that are less capable of withstanding a tornado. Single floor factory building built on a concrete slab vs house with a basement. You really think the factory will win in terms of human safety? Oh, but of course, thats the whole point of weaseling around the term 'withstanding a tornado'. I'm sure the factory building will withstand it better, in terms of how much of it will be remaining in the after math, but I'm also sure that the house with a basement is gonna be safer for the humans.
briffle 5y ago
Evidence you have never lived in the midwest. When I lived there, the tornado sirens would sometimes give you up to 15 minutes of warning that they one was likely in your area. This is not hurricanes where you have a weeks notice.
- MrStonedOne 5y ago
  This was so obviously going to be a troublesome weather day that the local tv stations had canceled previously scheduled scheduling for the day after and replaced it with news. Everybody knew some shit was gonna go down. At the very least giving your employees the option of staying home without fear of reprisal is minimum necessary for a clear conscience. I saw amazon was hit in this storm, knowing somebody who got fired for calling out because a tree blocked the only road out of their area, I guarantee there were people who only showed up because they feared being fired and they wanted to stay home during this but couldn't. Companies need to answer for those lives.
- cbfrench 5y ago
  While that can still be true, lead times have gotten much better in general, and Mayfield actually had over 2.5 hours of warning from KPAH[0], which is remarkable. But 45 mins or more seems to be the norm these days, at least in my general observations. Local authorities choosing to sound the alarms as soon as the warnings are issued is perhaps another matter. Edit: Someone else commented elsewhere that the current average lead time on TOR warnings is 9 minutes, so I stand corrected. Some of this probably depends on the storm mode associated with the tornado. For a supercell, the radar signatures are pretty clear and distinct, so it’s easier to provide earlier warnings. A tornado embedded in a QLCS is more difficult to detect, so I’d expect advanced notification to be more difficult. [0] See, e.g., https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-critical-gap-in-tornado-warning.html?m=1 https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-critical-gap-in-tor...
  - jcranmer 5y ago
    Tornado sirens are generally triggered by tornado warnings, which require confirmation of a tornado (either by visual confirmation of tornado, or more frequently, the telltale signs on radar). The blog post you cite talks about sufficient evidence to drive severe storm warnings or tornado watches, which are events that can happen close to weekly for some locations--too frequent to be used for tornado sirens.
jcranmer 5y ago
When the tornado sirens go off, you have at most a half-hour of warning of an approaching tornado, and generally fewer than 10 minutes. With that level of warning, you don't have time to tell your employees not to come in--they're either already there or are on the way. (And if they're on the way, then they probably need to execute the "get out of the car and hide in the ditch" phase of tornado preparedness anyways).
- MrStonedOne 5y ago
  Do you really think this was unknown until the tornado sirens sounded? Every news station in the region was warning of this storm, but i guess if you look it from a capitalist prospective why take the risk that you accidentally needlessly save a human life at the expense of some profits by canceling the unneeded 3 AM FUCKING MIDNIGHT SHIFT, when you can count on people on hacker news to justify the human cost of your business.
  - dave78 5y ago
    You are willfully ignoring the reality of living in a tornado-prone region. Tornado watches are issued when conditions are favorable for tornados to form. These watches cover hundreds and hundreds of miles (a large part of a state or sometimes even multiple states). They last for many hours. They happen a few dozen times a year for any given location. Tornado watches simply mean "conditions are favorable, keep an eye on the weather" but do not otherwise really impact people's planning or behavior. Do you really expect every business to shut down for 6+ hours each time a tornado watch is issued, dozens of times a year? People who live here and deal with tornados know how they work and none of them would expect their place of business to close just due to a tornado watch. Tornado warnings are acute, cover a very small area (by weather standards), and come with only minutes notice (and usually only last for 10-30 minutes). Tornado warnings just mean "shelter in place now". There is not time from a warning to do things like drive home from work or cancel a shift. If someone gets a warning as they are about to leave for work, they usually would just shelter without needing to be contacted by work. Due to the size of tornado warning areas, it's likely that a warning at your house may not cover your place of employment or vice-versa. If an employer penalizes an employee for being late because they were sheltering due to a tornado warning, then that is something that they deserve to be criticized for.
whiddershins 5y ago
Is it obvious that home was safer than work?

jandrewrogers 5y ago

The employees are no safer at home than at work. Tornados like this one are a statistical risk you take by living in that part of the planet. We can't engineer practical structures that can survive them. The only mitigation is to live somewhere that doesn't have severe tornados.

imglorp 5y ago
> The employees are no safer at home than at work. Yes but if they're at work, the employer is responsible for their basic safety. Asking them to sit in a sheet-metal-on-slab building during an EF3 storm is neglectful. Sending them home to shelter with their families, whatever they do there, would maybe have been the better plan.
- treis 5y ago
  Why? From the images I've seen it's not like the houses survived.
  - MrStonedOne 5y ago
    The houses have basements, the factory floors do not. The house does not need to survive for the humans in it to be safer then if they were in a sheet metal box with no basement.
    - treis 5y ago
      A basement isn't tornado proof when the house above it is collapsing. It looks like ~90% of the workers survived which doesn't strike me as much different than those in homes that took a direct hit.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dragontamer 5y ago
We can engineer bunkers and safe houses though, right? There's a question of whether or not its worth it, especially the maintenance costs. But if tornadoes in the region only give 15 minutes of warning, then a very strong "safehouse" of some kind is probably the best option. Maybe the group would get trapped in the safehouse and be nearly starving after 2 or 3 days. But the rescuers might find them in time? ------- I'm not necessarily saying that its easy to build a 110-person bunker. But if you have 110 workers, then surely that's something you need to consider as a preventative / safety measure?
- 1123581321 5y ago
  They had a tornado shelter, as would any significantly sized workplace in the midwest. We will find out if it was as good as it was supposed to be in the investigation.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    With over 100 found alive, it sounds like they did the right thing here. The devastation is awful but at least they got out with their lives. They can rebuild.
- themaninthedark 5y ago
  You wouldn't want a 110 bunker, you want 4 or 5 30 person bunkers. The building was roughly 340'x300', if the shelter was in the center the longest inside distance would be 200' but they also had material storage outside, up to 380' away as the crow flies(aka. gonna be longer). They will be literally running for their lives but Bob is 45 and has been smoking since he was 15. Jim is in a wheelchair.
- captainredbeard 5y ago
  Dude: when the people from a region tell you that your expectations about preventing tragedy are unreasonable, why do you continue to argue with their firsthand knowledge? Do you think you bring something novel or noteworthy to the table?
MrStonedOne 5y ago
>The employees are no safer at home than at work. I think that should be up to the employees to decide, not their manager, and sure as hell not you.

zdragnar 5y ago

Tornados come and go quickly. Storms capable of producing tornados don't always do so, and those that do produce them only in small areas compared to where they are actually capable of producing them. Having your employees stay home doesn't help at all. Many of them will be living in the same danger zone, and in fact many will be living in buildings that are less capable of withstanding a tornado.

DnDGrognard 5y ago
But they are not all in the same building which reduces the risk collectively.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Yes, but if the tornado had missed the factory building, being concentrated there could have been a benefit.
- zdragnar 5y ago
  Not even close. Tornados hitting trailer parks typically come with much higher death tolls than the 8-16 from hitting this building.
  - DnDGrognard 5y ago
    Probably should not have "trailer parks" in a tornado zone - in any event a trailer park could have tornado shelters.
MrStonedOne 5y ago
>Having your employees stay home doesn't help at all. Many of them will be living in the same danger zone, and in fact many will be living in buildings that are less capable of withstanding a tornado. Single floor factory building built on a concrete slab vs house with a basement. You really think the factory will win in terms of human safety? Oh, but of course, thats the whole point of weaseling around the term 'withstanding a tornado'. I'm sure the factory building will withstand it better, in terms of how much of it will be remaining in the after math, but I'm also sure that the house with a basement is gonna be safer for the humans.

briffle 5y ago

Evidence you have never lived in the midwest. When I lived there, the tornado sirens would sometimes give you up to 15 minutes of warning that they one was likely in your area. This is not hurricanes where you have a weeks notice.

MrStonedOne 5y ago
This was so obviously going to be a troublesome weather day that the local tv stations had canceled previously scheduled scheduling for the day after and replaced it with news. Everybody knew some shit was gonna go down. At the very least giving your employees the option of staying home without fear of reprisal is minimum necessary for a clear conscience. I saw amazon was hit in this storm, knowing somebody who got fired for calling out because a tree blocked the only road out of their area, I guarantee there were people who only showed up because they feared being fired and they wanted to stay home during this but couldn't. Companies need to answer for those lives.
cbfrench 5y ago
While that can still be true, lead times have gotten much better in general, and Mayfield actually had over 2.5 hours of warning from KPAH[0], which is remarkable. But 45 mins or more seems to be the norm these days, at least in my general observations. Local authorities choosing to sound the alarms as soon as the warnings are issued is perhaps another matter. Edit: Someone else commented elsewhere that the current average lead time on TOR warnings is 9 minutes, so I stand corrected. Some of this probably depends on the storm mode associated with the tornado. For a supercell, the radar signatures are pretty clear and distinct, so it’s easier to provide earlier warnings. A tornado embedded in a QLCS is more difficult to detect, so I’d expect advanced notification to be more difficult. [0] See, e.g., https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-critical-gap-in-tornado-warning.html?m=1 https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-critical-gap-in-tor...
- jcranmer 5y ago
  Tornado sirens are generally triggered by tornado warnings, which require confirmation of a tornado (either by visual confirmation of tornado, or more frequently, the telltale signs on radar). The blog post you cite talks about sufficient evidence to drive severe storm warnings or tornado watches, which are events that can happen close to weekly for some locations--too frequent to be used for tornado sirens.

jcranmer 5y ago

When the tornado sirens go off, you have at most a half-hour of warning of an approaching tornado, and generally fewer than 10 minutes. With that level of warning, you don't have time to tell your employees not to come in--they're either already there or are on the way. (And if they're on the way, then they probably need to execute the "get out of the car and hide in the ditch" phase of tornado preparedness anyways).

MrStonedOne 5y ago
Do you really think this was unknown until the tornado sirens sounded? Every news station in the region was warning of this storm, but i guess if you look it from a capitalist prospective why take the risk that you accidentally needlessly save a human life at the expense of some profits by canceling the unneeded 3 AM FUCKING MIDNIGHT SHIFT, when you can count on people on hacker news to justify the human cost of your business.
- dave78 5y ago
  You are willfully ignoring the reality of living in a tornado-prone region. Tornado watches are issued when conditions are favorable for tornados to form. These watches cover hundreds and hundreds of miles (a large part of a state or sometimes even multiple states). They last for many hours. They happen a few dozen times a year for any given location. Tornado watches simply mean "conditions are favorable, keep an eye on the weather" but do not otherwise really impact people's planning or behavior. Do you really expect every business to shut down for 6+ hours each time a tornado watch is issued, dozens of times a year? People who live here and deal with tornados know how they work and none of them would expect their place of business to close just due to a tornado watch. Tornado warnings are acute, cover a very small area (by weather standards), and come with only minutes notice (and usually only last for 10-30 minutes). Tornado warnings just mean "shelter in place now". There is not time from a warning to do things like drive home from work or cancel a shift. If someone gets a warning as they are about to leave for work, they usually would just shelter without needing to be contacted by work. Due to the size of tornado warning areas, it's likely that a warning at your house may not cover your place of employment or vice-versa. If an employer penalizes an employee for being late because they were sheltering due to a tornado warning, then that is something that they deserve to be criticized for.

whiddershins 5y ago

Is it obvious that home was safer than work?