Residents of Illinois were bemused to see an Amazon worker delivering parcels to houses “leveled” by a tornado hours earlier.
The powerful twister ripped through the Chicago suburbs of Naperville, Woodridge, Darien and Burr Ridge on Sunday night.
At least five people were injured when the fierce weather reduced houses to rubble, ripped up trees and downed electricity pylons. The tornado was rated EF-3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale by the National Weather Service—severe damage, with winds of 136-165mph.
A spokesperson for the City of Naperville, Linda LaCloche, confirmed that at least five people were in a critical condition in hospital.
She added that at least 16 homes were “uninhabitable,” with dozens more damaged. ABC7 Chicago put the number of destroyed homes closer to 100.
LaCloche told the Associated Press: “We’re lucky that it wasn’t worse. We have a lot of utility poles and electrical wires down and tree damage.”
Naperville’s fire chief, Mark Puknaitis, told ABC7: “This has been a tragic day, certainly, for neighborhood residents, but it could have been a lot worse.”
Residents of the Chicago suburbs, some now homeless, face a daunting clean-up job. In other ways, however, life is continuing as normal, with local people spotting an Amazon delivery man going about his rounds.
Brooke Schneider shared a clip to TikTok after filming a delivery driver stepping over the tornado debris while carrying a stack of parcels.
Behind him, an emergency Servpro van is parked up, and workers and clean-up vehicles can be seen sorting through the rubble.
The Amazon driver walks past numerous houses that are missing windows, bricks and roofs, as well as debris strewn across yards, the sidewalk and the street.
Schneider’s clip, shared on Tuesday and already watched more than 2.9 million times, was captioned: “These houses are literally leveled by tornadoes and this Amazon man cannot be stopped.”
She added the comment: “This man doing Jeffery’s work,” a reference to Amazon’s billionaire founder Jeff Bezos.
Reactions to her video have been mixed, with some TikTok commenters surprised at the delivery driver’s tenacity, while others focused on the customers who had placed the orders.
[11:11 PM CDT] Confirmed tornado (via tornado debris signature) near route 53/75th street in Woodridge. If you’re in the path of this storm, take cover now! #ilwx
— NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) June 21, 2021
Synorei wrote: “He does not get paid enough to care.”
Toastedbread_105 asked: “Is he supposed to keep them.”
M joked: “That prime delivery does not play.”
El.vope quipped: “Might not have a house anymore but at least I have this Amazon basic 22 piece (11 containers 11 lid) locking food storage container.”
“Dude I’d be ordering Amazon if I lost everything,” Snowden628 pointed out.
Kole reckoned: “They take same day delivery very seriously.”
A TikToker with the user name 414ent thought: “Well the radio keeps playing when you crash your car so this is similar.”
Newsweek has reached out to Amazon and Schneider for comment.
Robert Alexander/Getty Images
