An Amazon worker who was killed in the Edwardsville, Illinois, warehouse collapse wasn’t allowed to leave as a tornado was approaching, his girlfriend said. Larry Virden, who had started working for Amazon five months ago, was told to stay as a tornado was approaching, said Cherie Jones, who was texting him shortly before the incident. “He always tells me when he is filling up the Amazon truck when he is getting ready to go back … I was like ‘OK, I love you’. He’s like, ‘well Amazon won’t let me leave until after the storm blows over’,” she told the New York Post in a report published Sunday. Jones said that Virden had texted her 16 minutes before the tornado was said to have touched down, leaving him enough time to have gone back to their house in nearby Collinsville, which she said was a 13-minute drive away. “We heard the tornado didn’t touch down until 8.39pm so he had 20 minutes to get home,” she said. Jones said Virden sent his text at 8.23pm. “I messaged him and that was the last text message I got from him,” she said. “I told him where we live, it was only lightning at the time. After that, I got nothing from him.” Jones said she did not want to blame Amazon for her partner’s death, but that she couldn’t help but wonder whether he would have made it home if his supervisors hadn’t told him to stay. “It’s that what-if situation: what if they would have let him leave? He could have made it home,” she said. Severe weather the ‘new normal’ after US tornadoes disaster Multiple tornadoes ripped through Arkansas, Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Missouri on Friday night, leaving buildings destroyed and dozens of people dead. Virden was one of six Amazon employees who died after a wall and a roof collapsed at the warehouse. Another was Amazon driver Austin J. McEwen, 26. “He was my friend and he didn’t make it,” Brian Erdmann said of McEwen. Erdmann said he was on his way to the warehouse to make a delivery when the tornado hit, so he was not harmed. “If I would have got back 45 minutes earlier, I probably would have been at the same place. I would have been right there with him,” he said. Amazon said: “We’re deeply saddened by the news that members of our Amazon family passed away as a result of the storm in Edwardsville, Illinois. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their loved ones, and everyone impacted by the tornado”. Several employees told Reuters that they had been directed to shelter in bathrooms by Amazon managers after receiving emergency alerts on mobile phones from authorities. Some of those workers said they had kept their phones despite what they believed was a violation of an Amazon policy that prevents them from having mobile phones at work. ‘At least 100 dead’, apocalyptic scenes, after US hit by wave of tornadoes The company has responded by saying that “employees and drivers are allowed to have their cell phones”. Bloomberg reported that Amazon had relaxed its rules barring phones on the warehouse floor during the Covid-19 pandemic, but said the company has been slowly reintroducing the ban across the country. Neighbouring state Kentucky was the most impacted by the tornadoes. At least four twisters hit there, including one with an extraordinarily long path of about 320km (200 miles). US President Joe Biden declared a major disaster in Kentucky on Sunday night. Additional reporting by Associated Press and Reuters