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ST. LOUIS, Missouri — A year ago today, an EF3 tornado tore through north St. Louis in seventeen minutes. It killed five people, displaced thousands of families and left a corridor of destruction that remains visible from the air.
On the anniversary of the deadly tornado, the political fight over who failed those families — and who, if anyone, is coming to fix it — broke into the open in the most direct terms yet.
Cori Bush, who represented this district before losing to Wesley Bell in the August 2024 Democratic primary, released a statement that was not subtle.
“It’s shameful for a member of Congress to lack an understanding of Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery funds and to be completely unaware of how to best serve their constituents in a time of crisis,” Bush said. “Like Rep. Bell said, elections have consequences. As a result of millions of dollars spent on his behalf by right-wing donors, the people of Missouri’s 1st District are currently lacking a Representative who has the experience needed to truly advocate for our community.”
The program Bush is talking about — CDBG-DR — is the federal housing recovery tool that has sent billions to New Orleans, Houston and New Jersey after their disasters. Congress sent more than $500 million from the same funding pool to Missouri to help rebuild after 12 separate storm events dating back to 2003, according to a review of federal spending records. After the St. Louis tornado, it has sent nothing.
CDBG-DR does not flow automatically. Congress must pass a specific supplemental appropriation each time. That process typically requires a presidential budget request, bipartisan support and a disaster (or a series of disasters) large enough to command attention in Washington. The last such appropriation was made in December 2024. The St. Louis tornado struck five months later. Without a new appropriation, no amount of advocacy from a single member of Congress can unlock the funds.
Bush said she secured $82 million in CDBG-DR funds for Missouri after the 2022 flooding. That claim is hers to make and hers to prove. What we can confirm is that the record supports that Missouri received $82.3 million in that period — though CDBG-DR appropriations involve congressional action broadly, and the specific extent of any single member’s role is difficult to isolate.
What is not in dispute: When KSDK asked Bell last week, on camera, whether he had known the program existed and what he had done to pursue it — a specific list of possible actions, from filing a bill to holding a press conference to speaking on the House floor — he confirmed none of them in the moment. His office later provided a written statement describing behind-the-scenes work with the Appropriations Committee and outreach to gulf state offices experienced in disaster recovery.
Bell responded Saturday with a statement. “The former congresswoman should know that CDBG-DR funds must be appropriated by Congress and signed into law,” he said. “I’m fighting every day to bring these and other resources home to our district.” Bell called Bush’s statement “just another example of Cori playing loose with facts and fabricating her own record” and challenged her to accept “an invitation of a televised debate so that voters can hear from both of us directly about the issues that matter most.”
Both campaigns have separately indicated a willingness to debate. As of Saturday, no date or format has been agreed upon.
Bell announced Friday that he will hold a news conference Saturday at the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, introducing legislation he calls the “Tornado Preparedness Act.”
Whether the “Tornado Preparedness Act” addresses the CDBG-DR gap is the question the moment demands. CDBG-DR cannot be unlocked through standalone legislation from a single member. It requires a supplemental appropriation, typically as part of a broader disaster spending package. That is a harder lift and a different kind of political work.
The details of the bill were not released in advance. The timing — the anniversary, a community resource event as the backdrop — is the work of a politician who knows what the day demands.
What it demands, from the perspective of the people who have been living in damaged houses and displaced apartments for 365 days, is harder to satisfy than a press conference. Kayla Reed, the south city activist who organized The People’s Response and spent the year filling the gap that the government left open, put it plainly the day before the anniversary.
“As residents, we have the responsibility to hold them accountable for their failures,” she said. “And this isn’t a praise moment. This isn’t a victory lap that anyone should be taking. We should be very clear about the level of devastation that we still are in. And any elected official that cannot have hard conversations should consider a different career.”
Bush is having the hard conversation in the most aggressive terms available to a candidate who doesn’t currently hold the seat. Bell is about to have his version of it at 11:50 a.m. on Kingshighway. The people of North St. Louis will be watching to see which one sounds like someone who understands what they have been living through.
