Where were Jeff Bezos, Amazon on Saturday?

At 5:45 a.m. Saturday morning, a press conference was held in downstate Edwardsville. The deeply sad purpose was to update the public on what happened the previous night when a EF-3 tornado had rolled through that community and partially collapsed a warehouse belonging to Amazon. At least six people died.

Edwardsville Fire Chief James Whiteford was there, so was Edwardsville Police Chief Michael Fillback and other local officials. So, in fact, was Gov. J.B. Pritzker, despite the early hour and the location of Edwardsville, which is far closer to St. Louis than Springfield or Chicago. Pritzker still got himself there to praise emergency workers and to try to comfort some of the afflicted.

You know who was not at that press conference? Anyone from Amazon.

Stunning, given that the company owned the warehouse where people died.

Only hours later did Amazon finally put out a statement from a spokesman that was so anodyne as to be insulting to those victims: “We’re deeply saddened by the news that members of our Amazon family passed away as a result of the storm in Edwardsville. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their loved ones, and everyone impacted by the storm. We also want to thank all the first responders for their ongoing efforts on scene. We’re continuing to provide support to our employees and partners in the area.”

Thoughts and prayers? Please. Anything but that cliche. And when families and “partners” are in pain, they show up for each other. And who is the “we,” exactly? Without a face or a name, this was meaningless language.

It got worse. Early Saturday, Jeff Bezos, still the executive chairman and public face of Amazon despite handing over the CEO reins to Andy Jassy last summer, was tweeting Saturday morning about the pleasures of his fun space venture, seemingly oblivious to what had happened the night before to regular folks trying to survive on terra firma. Only after he received intense pressure for the omission, did Bezos put out an expression of sympathy.

They used to teach it in business school: Act immediately, show empathy, do the right thing fast. And take care of your people.

But tech companies, as a group, have not exactly kept up that tradition as they have risen in wealth and power. They hide behind the new ease of anonymity, avoiding the costs of human contact. We suspect that it took Pritzker’s staffers a lot of effort to figure out exactly who their boss could call at Amazon so he could say that he had done so. Was there anybody even there? Was the spokesman really an algorithm?

This page often has taken government officials to task for falling down on the job. In this case, the government was there doing the best it could, all through the night Friday and on Saturday morning. It was a business that fell down on surely its most important job: to immediately show that it cared for human life right here on earth.