Employees Told To Keep Working Despite Tornado Sirens

Friday, June 8th 2007, 9:06 pm

By: News On 6

Tornado sirens and wind gusts up to 70 miles an hour forced some to seek shelter in Bartlesville Thursday night, but one Sonic employee says the company was more concerned with making money than their safety. News On 6 anchor Latoya Silmon reports all is back to normal at the Bartlesville Sonic, but one employee says working there Thursday night was downright scary.

â€œOut of the blue it just started raining real hard and winds started blowing and then the door started blowing on the north side,â€ said Sonic employee Alec Combs.

Combs says tornado sirens came next.

â€œI wanted to leave,â€ Combs said.

But instead, she says the manager told her and everyone else to keep working.

â€œYou know when it's raining and stuff, I understand they have to keep going, but when the sirens went off they had to stay outside,â€ said family friend Joni Sutterfield. â€œI don't understand why they don't have something, a plan.

In a statement issued to the News On 6, Sonic says, "The manager immediately collected information regarding the tornado in the area through local radio and television broadcast reports. Upon learning the tornado was several miles east of the drive-in and was continuing to move in an easterly direction, the local manager decided the drive-in could remain open. The drive-in was not in the path of the tornado."

News On 6 meteorologists tracked the storm and say this Sonic was clearly in the storm's path but later moved out of the area.

Combs and her friends say businesses should have a plan, but Washington County's Emergency Management says they aren't required to, but there are things you can do to protect yourself.

Emergency management says you should go to the lowest level possible, find a small sturdy room and get away from windows.

Sonic maintains that if the store or its employees were in danger they would have been moved to an interior room. The company also says anyone who felt uncomfortable working could have left.

Watch the video: Drive-In Employees Work Through Tornado Warning