Amazon worker killed in warehouse collapse wasn’t allowed to leave when tornado approached, girlfriend says
- Six Amazon employees died after an Illinois warehouse collapsed due to a tornado on Friday
- Girlfriend of one worker told the New York Post he was told to stay as the tornado approached
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.