The site of a roof collapse at an Amazon.com distribution center in Edwardsville, Illinois.
Drone Base | Reuters
Gary Quigley was nearing the end of his Amazon delivery route on Friday when he noticed the winds were picking up.
Quigley had been listening to local radio stations in Edwardsville, Illinois, all afternoon to keep an eye on the weather forecast. Earlier in the day, the National Weather Service had called for severe storms and “strong tornadoes” in the area.
At about 7:30 p.m. local time, Quigley called his dispatcher Kevin Dickey, who helped oversee the drivers at his contracted delivery company, Xseed. Both men agreed the weather was getting worse. Dickey told Quigley to head back to the Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, known as DLI4.
Quigley pulled in at DLI4 to clock out of his shift and stopped to chat with Dickey.
“He asked me if it was getting bad out there,” Quigley recalled. “Then he told me to go ahead and get home safe and that he’d see me tomorrow.”
It would be the last time Quigley spoke to Dickey.
Dickey, 62, was one of five other Amazon employees who died Dec. 10 after a tornado barreled through the Edwardsville warehouse.
The EF-3 tornado touched down at approximately 8:28 p.m. local time on Dec. 10 with wind speeds of 150 mph. The 1.1 million-square-foot facility’s roof collapsed, while 40-foot-tall, 11-inch-thick concrete walls on the sides of the building fell inward.
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