As many as 100 workers were reportedly trapped inside a huge Amazon warehouse in Illinois after a roof and other parts of the building collapsed when violent storms, including a tornado, ripped through the area Friday night.
Several dozen emergency service vehicles and rescue workers were massed outside the building in Edwardsville, in west-central Illinois, as the area remained under a tornado warning until 11 p.m. local time.
The extent of injuries was not immediately known. But law enforcement authorities were calling it a “mass casualty event,” according to reporter Jenna Rae at KMOV-TV in St. Louis. One official told KTVI-TV that up to 100 people were believed to be in the building, working the night shift during the holiday rush, at the time of the collapse.
Rae reported late Friday that about two dozen workers were transported from the facility on Madison County Transit buses. A medical evacuation helicopter arrived on the scene shortly afterward, and excavators were moving in to begin removing debris.
Rae reported that about a third of the building appeared to be down. Another reporter estimated that as much as half of the building may have collapsed.
The National Weather Service said radar had confirmed a tornado just east of Edwardsville, about 25 miles northeast of St. Louis, around the time the Amazon Fulfillment Center was damaged.
Meteorologist James Spann of ABC’s Birmingham, Alabama, affiliate WBMA posted video of what he described as the tornado that struck the Amazon facility.
Severe storm warnings and tornado watches had been posted throughout the region on Friday, including in Arkansas, where earlier in the evening two people were killed by a possible tornado at a nursing home, according to The Associated Press.
People with friends and loved ones in the building gathered outside late Friday for news.
Aiesha White told Rae she rushed to the scene after talking on the phone to a family member who was inside the building at the time of the collapse.
“He was on the phone with me while it was happening,” she said. What appeared to be a tornado was “hitting the back of the building, the trucks were coming in, I told him to jump out the truck and duck,” White added. “I told him I was on my way.”
White got to the building but had not been able to find her family member as of late Friday.
Another woman told KSDK-TV that she rushed to the warehouse, where her husband works, after his cell phone suddenly went immediately to voice mail and she could no longer reach him.
“I’m worried sick,” she said. “I just want to know if he’s okay.”
