A city official has been suspended and residents are still reeling after a deadly tornado tore through St. Louis, killing five people and exposing critical failures in the city’s emergency response.
Ahead of the devastating Friday evening storm, the city’s Emergency Management Director, Sarah Russell, failed to activate tornado sirens, leaving residents unprepared and vulnerable.
The City Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) director has since been placed on paid administrative leave, Mayor Cara Spencer announced on Tuesday, saying she wanted to ‘provide accountability’ after the life-saving alerts weren’t deployed.
In a statement, Spencer said CEMA failed to ‘alert the public to dangers.’
‘Commissioner Russell has served our city for years and is a person of goodwill, but I cannot move on from this without providing accountability and ensuring that our emergency management is in trusted hands,’ the mayor said.
Spencer said an internal investigation into the siren failure revealed ‘multiple’ issues, prompting her decision to seek an external investigation of CEMA.
She pointed to various details in the Tuesday release, including a malfunctioning button in the Fire Department to set off sirens.
Five lives were lost in St. Louis when a powerful tornado struck the city early Friday morning. Pictured: People clear out their supplies the day after tornados hit areas of St. Louis
ST. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer announced on Tuesday that the City Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) director, Sarah Russell, has since been placed on paid administrative leave
Sarah Russell and other CEMA staffers were away from their office – where another button to activate the sirens is located – even though strong storms were in the forecast
Russell and other CEMA staffers were away from their office – where another button to activate the sirens is located – even though strong storms were in the forecast, Spencer said.
‘At that point, there was a breakdown in communication,’ the release said.
‘The directive to activate the sirens was ambiguous, which cannot happen when a tornado is sweeping through our city and St. Louisans’ safety depends on being alerted immediately.’
Spencer later announced that John Walk, a captain with the Fire Department, will lead CEMA ‘until a permanent commissioner has been found.’
She also said that Michael Thiemann, a division chief with the Metro West Fire Protection District, would provide the city with ‘additional incident management response support.’
The city of St. Louis operates 60 warnings sirens and an upgrade to the existing alarms is underway. The city also has an online and text alert program, STLToday reported.
The battered city is now scrambling to put the pieces back together, employing volunteers, local emergency response teams and several others.
However, the widespread effort is not enough to curtail the estimated $1.6 billion in damages caused by the EF-3 tornado, which reportedly cut a 23-mile path through the area, damaged over 5,000 buildings and registered winds up to 152 miles per hour.
The mayor has since called for federal intervention, seeking aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), but city’s cries for help have not been met.
The battered city is now scrambling to put the pieces back together, employing volunteers, local emergency response teams and several others. Pictured: A collapsed home in the 700 block of Aubert Ave the day after tornados hit areas of St. Louis, Missouri
But, the widespread community effort is not enough to curtail the estimated $1.6 billion in damages caused by the EF-3 tornado, which reportedly cut a 23-mile path through the area, damaged over 5,000 buildings and registered winds up to 152 miles per hour
Spencer said on social media that even though the city is actively working with state and federal authorities to get FEMA resources, it could take weeks for them to arrive. Pictured: Jerikah McCloud looks out the destroyed second floor of her family home in the Academy neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri
‘On the local level, every organization, community member, elected official, has been on point. What we need right now is federal assistance,’ Spencer told MSNBC. ‘This is what the federal government is for.’
Spencer said on social media that even though the city is actively working with state and federal authorities to get FEMA resources, it could take weeks for them to arrive.
FEMA doesn’t automatically provide assistance after a storm or disaster, their presence must be requested by the state, she said.
On Monday, Missouri Governor, Mike Kehoe, asked President Donald Trump to issue a federal Emergency Declaration and requested that FEMA participate in joint Preliminary Damage Assessments, USAToday reported.
The following day, Senator Josh Hawley pushed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to get the request for Friday’s storm and two other unanswered disaster declaration requests before Trump as soon as possible.
‘We are desperate for assistance in Missouri,’ he said.
Noem promised to get the disaster declarations to Trump and expedite FEMA assistance once he approves them.
Yet, many online are skeptical of the federal agencies as Missouri is still waiting for a response to requests for federal disaster declarations related to storms, tornadoes or flooding on March 14 and 15, March 30 through April 8 and April 29, according to the governor’s office.
FEMA doesn’t automatically provide assistance after a storm or disaster – their presence must be requested by the state. Pictured: A woman searches through a pile of bricks and debris, standing where a home once stood in the aftermath of a tornado in St. Louis, Missouri,
Rescue crews sift through rubble in the aftermath of the deadly EF-3 tornado
A man works inside his damaged home caused by a tornado in St. Louis, Missouri
Many online are skeptical of the federal agencies as Missouri is still waiting for a response to requests for federal disaster declarations related to storms, tornadoes or flooding on March 14 and 15, March 30 through April 8 and April 29, according to the governor’s office.
‘So a 23-mile long x 1 mile wide tornado reaps destruction through a densely populated zone in St Louis MO and no FEMA response, what gives?’ one user wrote on X, formerly Twitter, tagging the President and other elected officials.
Another tagged the President, claiming residents are ‘begging’ for federal intervention.
‘@realDonaldTrump we need boots on the ground people are begging for help in St Louis Missouri because it hasn’t even been declared a state of emergency yet and there’s no FEMA or Red Cross there yet!’
Another user tagged the federal emergency management agency directly, calling for help: ‘@fema Any assistance for St Louis expected? Anyone who’s had a seriously rough weather week, really, but densely populated outer city areas is alot of folks without a home and likely no insurance coverage for tornados,’ the user wrote.
In recent weeks, at least 2,000 of FEMA’s estimated 6,100 full-time employees are believed to have left or plan to leave the federal agency due to terminations and voluntary retirements ordered by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Further layoffs are expected in the coming weeks as the Trump Administration’s review of FEMA continues.
