FedEx Facility Ravaged by Tornado in Michigan
A tornado ripped through a FedEx facility in Michigan Tuesday evening as severe storms continued to sweep across the Midwestern U.S.
At one point, roughly 50 people were trapped inside the 320,000-square-foot facility due to downed power lines. All employees who initially sought shelter in the building are now safe and accounted for, according to a company spokesperson.
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“Our thoughts are with those affected by the tornado in Portage, Michigan, and we are grateful there were no serious injuries resulting from the damage to our facility at 6701 Portage Road,” the FedEx spokesperson said. “We continue to assess the damage, and we are implementing contingency plans to lessen any potential impacts on service.”
The spokesperson said customers with questions about their shipments can check the FedEx website for updates. On its website, FedEx currently says there is “no service” for its FedEx Ground division in Portage and bordering towns like Kalamazoo.
It is unclear how many packages have been impacted by the damage to the facility.
Photos and videos from various local news affiliates show that a substantial amount of the building is severely damaged, including a caved-in roof, a collapsed exterior wall and flooding. There was debris on top of FedEx vehicles. The area near the building also had damage to trees and traffic signals.
FedEx has offered no timetable as to when the facility is expected to reopen.
The building serves as a distribution center for FedEx Ground, first opening in July 2021. When it was being built, FedEx said the facility was part of its then-nationwide network expansion to boost daily package volume capacity and further enhance FedEx Ground’s speed and service capabilities. The company has since been focused on consolidating its FedEx Ground, FedEx Express and FedEx Services divisions as part of a wider cost-cutting measure.
According to Ben Ruddell, professor in the School of Informatics, Computing and Cyber Systems at Northern Arizona University, supply chain problems are likely going to be “limited to the local area that was affected by the tornado, and they’re not going to be of national significance.”
The tornado that impacted the FedEx warehouse was one of two that hit Portage. In total, there were 26 total tornado reports throughout five states Tuesday: Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Arkansas and West Virginia, according to the NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS).
The severe weather marks the first-ever tornado emergency, the highest level, issued for Michigan from the NWS.
The storms came a day after a deadly twister ripped through an Oklahoma town amid wider reports of 19 tornadoes across several states.
Just a week prior, a tornado ripped open the center of a Dollar Tree warehouse, effectively forcing the retailer to shutter the facility for the foreseeable future.
More than 30,000 customers were without power in Michigan early Wednesday, and an additional 10,000 in Ohio, according to PowerOutage.us.
In response to the storms, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency for Southwest Michigan.
“My heart goes out to all those impacted by tonight’s severe weather in southwest Michigan,” Whitmer said in a statement. “State and local emergency teams are on the ground and working together to assist Michiganders. I’ve declared a state of emergency to ensure resources are expedited to the area and activated our State Emergency Operations Center. We will continue monitoring the situation and coordinating efforts overnight. I want to thank all the first responders working hard to keep Michiganders safe. We’ll get through this together.”
The highest tornado threat Wednesday will include eastern Missouri, southern Illinois and Indiana, western Kentucky and northwest Tennessee, the NWS says. In addition to severe storms and tornadoes, powerful wind is also expected for other parts of Tennessee, stretching down to Dallas, Texas.
On the other side of the world, a FedEx Express air freighter was forced to land in Turkey without the use of its front landing gear on Wednesday morning. The Boeing 767-300F freighter, which was inbound from Paris, made the landing with its nose landing gear retracted.
There were no injuries reported as a result of the landing. The plane has been in service with the operator since its initial delivery in December 2014.
Video of the landing, obtained from Reuters, showed sparks and smoke coming from the front of the plane as it scraped along the runway before coming to a stop. The plane was subsequently doused with firefighting foam.
