ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) – One year after a tornado struck St. Louis, the mayor reflected on the recovery efforts, federal challenges and plans for the future in an interview with Chief Investigative Reporter Lauren Trager in Fountain Park.
Q: What goes through your mind being here in this space?
Every time I’m here, it’s heavy. Coming and seeing the demolitions and progress, it’s just very, very heavy.
Q: Do you see signs of hope?
Oh, absolutely. So much work has already been done on so many of these homes. Obviously, so much cleanup. Being in this park, it feels, on the one hand, so naked of the trees, the enormous trees that were here, just a year ago. But look at all of these trees that have been planted.
Q: A year later, what grade would you give yourself and give city government on the recovery and the response to the tornado?
Oh, I couldn’t grade myself or our city government. I think that’s something our community has to do. But I would say that the community gets an A. That I could grade. Seeing so many people come out for each other and for the city was absolutely phenomenal.
Q: Some people, though, have said it’s been a year. We would like to see more change. Maybe it’s taken too long. You yourself have said you kind of feel that way at times. What would you say has been the biggest impediment to a speedier recovery?
Oh, there’s not one thing. It’s a whole host of things. When we came in, I was just 30 days in. We saw from the tornado’s not, the sirens not sounding, the cascading failures within the emergency management processes that hadn’t been updated in far too long, to the federal government, not just having a new FEMA. The city of St. Louis has become the unlucky guinea pig in an entirely new orientation for our federal government. But that set of circumstances, those rules, have been ever-changing throughout the last year. And that has been enormously challenging.
Q: What role is the federal government playing right now and do you need them to continue to step up?
We do need them to continue to step up, but they are, they have delivered $50 million in individual assistance to residents. Nowhere near what our residents need to address the $2 billion worth of damage. And, of course, they’re showing up in public assistance, but we need more. The FEMA qualifications for demolition cost reimbursement are incredibly narrow, and we fought and fought and fought and fought to widen that to include the hundreds of buildings that were vacant before the tornado and had reason to believe we would get there. Unfortunately, we haven’t gotten there. These are enormous challenges, but I think where I’m at in this one-year mark, while recognizing that we are not where we want to be, the important thing is where we’re going and to continue to put one foot in front of the other, so that we can get there together.
Q: The Office of Recovery has said that demolitions and repairs are going to start accelerating now, can you guarantee that’s going to happen and what is that going to look like?
Yes. Putting in funding those while putting in place new programs and bringing in national partners in that work. I’m also very proud of the work that my team is doing with the President of the Board of Aldermen and the Board of Aldermen to put forward a RAMS package that will result in significant funding to these efforts that will allow us not to do all the work that we need. The RAMS funds couldn’t possibly address the two billion dollars worth of damage, but we can make a sizable difference and deploying those as strategically as possible through the neighborhood planning effort that’s underway. I feel very, very hopeful about our future.
Q: Obviously, some fear that recovery in the Central West End, for example, looks different than it does in our North St. Louis neighborhoods. How do you address that portion?
The Central West End doesn’t have blocks and blocks of vacant buildings that were condemned and vacant for decades before the tornado. Those are some of the biggest challenges. It’s a very, very different environment than what we’re seeing in other neighborhoods that have seen disinvestment have extraordinarily high levels of uninsured properties and have a high reliance on the city to fill those needs. The Central West End is taking care largely of those needs themselves. So that comparison is unfortunate and certainly just not applicable.
Q: Are you encouraging property owners to still take their own accountability?
I think anybody who can insure their home should. Absolutely. I’m a homeowner. I’ve always kept home insurance. However, something that’s often missed in that conversation is that you have neighborhoods here that have so much vacancy. And you have properties that the cost to replace them is in some cases five or even ten times the cost of the home. So insurance companies have been unable to provide insurance plans for many of these properties. It’s enormously challenging to find even an insurance company willing to provide a policy. And often that policy can be cost prohibitive. So, in that case, your question was, what role does government play? And I would argue that because our city has played a key and active role in disinvestment in these neighborhoods and we have a vested interest in the future success of these neighborhoods, it is incumbent upon us. And we do have an important and critical role to play in investing in the future of these communities.
Q: What about broad scale plans for each plans for economic development for building new housing, where do those plans stand?
Well, those plans, in large part, are part of the planning efforts that are underway with the planning department and being done with community. It’s important that that work is really done and centered in community. And so, as we come through the next couple months and as those plans are finalized, those will be the roadblocks for building the long-term reinvestment plan.
Q: Is the city better prepared today for another natural emergency or another major emergency or crisis?
We are in some very, very significant ways. And we’ve done some very, very serious things to, one, align along any type of weather event. You saw some of that through the Winter Weather Command going through this last winter. One of the harshest winters the city has had in a very, very long time. It looks like an extraordinarily better coordinated set of departments. Now, we still have work to do, and that’s not to say that we’re there yet. But we’re making very, very constructive strides in that direction, including ensuring that the tornado sirens are online.
Q: One year from now, what does it look like in the city?
Well, as you mentioned, we are accelerating the demolition and debris removal plan. And we’re going to be deploying the state dollars as well as local dollars to round that out. And the home repair program, we’re going to continue to move that RAMS package forward. And you’re going to see some investment in the infrastructure throughout North St. Louis, really focusing on the area impacted by the tornado. But a year from now, that work is going to be well underway. And we’re going to have some very, very exciting, constructive work to really be proud of.
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