8 dead in Kentucky factory after company did not let them out
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As workers were asking to go home amid a tornado emergency, the Mayfield Consumer Products factory rebuffed its employees' requests to leave early, threatening them with losing their jobs.
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People embrace as tornado damage is seen after extreme weather hit the region on December 12, 2021, in Mayfield, Kentucky (AFP)
When a tornado hit Kentucky on Sunday, it ravaged the state and particularly leveled a candle factory in Mayfield, killing eight and leaving eight others missing. The Mayfield Consumer Products factory had 110 employees working at the time of the catastrophe who requested to leave, but the company threatened to fire them if they left during their shifts.
"There were some early reports that as many as 70 could be dead in the factory. One is too many, but we thank God that the number is turning out to be far, far fewer," a company spokesperson said.
Kentucky's Governor said Sunday the storm was so ferocious the plant had nowhere safe left for the employees to hide, and those on the shift only had about a 20 minutes warning that a powerful tornado was closing in.
"It appears most were sheltering in the place they were told to shelter," Governor Andy Beshear said. "I hope that area was as safe as it could be, but this thing got hit directly by the strongest tornado we could have possibly imagined."
Beshear had previously said the tornado claimed the lives of at least 80 people in his state following a series of powerful tornadoes that ravaged the region on Friday night.
For hours ahead of the tornado, when workers had just heard about it, they called on their managers to allow them to take shelter at their own homes, only to have their requests rejected by the management.
Fearing for their safety, some workers left during their shifts regardless of the repercussions, which could have seen them losing their jobs.
The facility was entirely leveled, and the tornado left nothing but rubble and dead bodies behind. All this could have been avoided had the managers allowed their employees to leave.
Employees gathered in bathrooms and inside hallways, which was futile, as the real tornado only arrived several hours later after they decided that the immediate danger had passed and began asking to go home.
"If you leave, you’re more than likely to be fired," one of the survivors said, quoting managers she had heard telling four workers standing near her asking to leave. "I heard that with my own ears."
The management had nearly a four-hour window between the first and the second emergency alarms when they could have allowed the workers to go home, but they actively chose to do otherwise.
A spokesperson for the company denied what workers have said, alleging that the company has had a policy since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, as per which "Employees can leave any time they want to leave and they can come back the next day."
He also denied that managers told employees that leaving their shifts meant risking their jobs, although the death of workers suggests otherwise.
Those who survived the catastrophe sustained many injuries varying from mild to serious, with some even suffering from chemical burns.
