Beef business recalls moment tornado landed at warehouse

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Beef brand Piedmontese said its Lincoln warehouse was hit by one of the tornadoes on Friday. The same tornado destroyed Garner Industries and derailed train cars on Cornhusker Highway.

Despite the damages, the director of operations said he is grateful everyone was safe and plans to return to business as soon as possible.

Director of Operations, Nick Lahm, said from a safe distance he watched the twister pick up several of its vehicles and toss them around.

Lahm said windows were blown out, and common areas like the kitchen were damaged. He said that, luckily, workers still there had already been moved to their brick office building for safety.

“The first thing we started thinking about is everybody okay,” Lahm said. “We made sure everybody was safe and accounted for.”

Even though they followed tornado protocol, Lahm said nothing can fully prepare you for the feeling of being in the storm’s path.

“You kind of know this stuff is out there, but it was a little surprising that it was right here,” Lahm said. “We knew what to do, what to expect, but we didn’t expect that it’d be literally in our backyard.”

Lahm said there was one driver doing routes during the storm but he was not in the area and made it home safely.

Lahm reported that Piedmont lost power for a little while but was able to move inventory to a refrigerated area until Lincoln Electric Systems restored the power.

Workers won’t fully return to work until contractors and the USDA deem the facility safe.

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