Amazon Still Delivers Packages to Houses 'Leveled' by Illinois Tornado

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.

In response, Amazon told Newsweek its drivers "should never make a delivery if they feel unsafe," and said it has protocols in place to prevent issues from severe weather.

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.

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."

A spokesperson for Amazon, Branden Baribeau, told Newsweek: "Our Delivery Service Partners (DSPs) and their drivers should never make a delivery if they feel unsafe on road. When it comes to severe weather, we have processes in place to monitor weather events at the local level and adjust route lengths, cancel routes, or even close Delivery Stations and call drivers back off road if necessary.

"If any of these were to happen, the drivers receive push notifications via their Amazon Delivery App and via their DSP instructing them on next steps and to return to station, if necessary. Above all, drivers can always return to station if necessary or contact us for additional help via their Delivery App."

Newsweek has reached out to Schneider for comment.

Update 6/24/21, 3a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Amazon.