This story was originally published by Mother Jones and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
At 5:30 p.m., December 10 of last year, they heard the unmistakable wail of tornado sirens. Some of the workers crafting cinnamon, pumpkin spice, and vanilla candles asked to go home: Western Kentucky’s Mayfield Consumer Products plant, with its vulnerable wide-span roof, was the kind of building to avoid in a storm.
Staff were first told to shelter in a hallway. But they were soon ordered back to the factory floor to finish their ten-hour shifts. Leave, managers warned, and you’re fired. The threat worked.
Just after 9 p.m., the sirens wailed again. The tornado obliterated the Mayfield plant. Eight workers died.
Mayfield’s management, according to a survivors’ class-action suit, was aware of the danger — forecasters had been predicting major tornadoes all week — and had rejected a request by floor supervisors to stop work for the day. But the firm’s other plan... Read more
