ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) – May 16, 2025 started like any other day at the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, with staff serving clients and working to help the community.
An EF3 tornado swept through north St. Louis, ripping apart lives, homes and buildings. The Urban League’s historic facilities were also damaged. The building was filled with employees when the twister hit.
“It sounded and felt like a train was going by. The walls started to just go like this,” said Mead Ruesing, Executive Assistant at the Urban League.
The staff took shelter and made it out safely, but dealt with significant damage left behind.
Richard Keith Davis, Director of Marketing, tells First Alert 4, “It was devastating just looking around, just walking out of the building, looking at all the vehicles that were destroyed, looking at the light poles all over the ground, looking across the street at the Plaza and how that was completely torn up.”
Michael McMillan, President and CEO, said the shopping plaza was completely destroyed, the women’s business center was ruined, along with the greenhouse and his office.
“To watch rain coming through the actual ceiling of the Urban League, having worked so hard to create this space was very difficult for all of us,” McMillan said.
Despite the shock from the storm, the Urban League’s team jumped into action.
“We were here to well into the night, boarding up windows, cleaning glass and those types of things, so that staff could come back in so we could serve the community,” said Michael Brown, Chief of Staff.
McMillan said the staff stepped up, motivated by their desire to help the community.
Since May 16, the Urban League’s staff has worked providing basic needs. According to organization, for 15 weekends in a row, they held large-scale distributions that helped more than 30,000 people.
“Something my grandfather used to say, you can only judge a person’s character by the many lives they help make better. So I feel like that’s what the Urban League is doing every single day,” Davis said.
The organization is still working to help people secure housing, apply for assistance and navigate insurance claims. The road to full recovery is long.
“We are currently, as we speak, renovating homes and actually helping people to be able to get back into their properties that they work so hard to have over a lifetime. And so our goal is to spend the next several years doing just that,” McMillan said.
With billions of dollars in estimated damage and thousands of lives disrupted, McMillan said recovery takes collective effort from nonprofits, government and everyone working in the same direction.
A year later, many people are still without homes. The process of rebuilding is long and tedious, something the organization is experiencing as well.
The Urban League just got approval to tear down its plaza and begin that process within the last two weeks.
“So we understand how complicated it is because it’s been just as complicated and significant for us as a hurdle to jump through and to get through as a process. So it’s going to be a journey,” McMillan said.
McMillan said he was inspired by people he had never met who came from all over the region to the Urban League for the first time.
“None of us had any resources to deal with this because we had never dealt with this. All of us are in on-the-job training on how to deal with a tornado. None of us have ever encountered this type of tragedy,” McMillan said.
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