With FEMA reportedly understaffed and underfunded, St. Louis residents who endured devastating tornadoes nearly two weeks ago say they remain desperate for help in surroundings reminiscent of a war zone.
“Practically every place my family has been in, visited, touched, has been destroyed,” said Lisa Covington, who has lived in north St. Louis for decades.
“They have to get to the store. We have a lot of people that we’ve helped out,” she continued. “Some people who didn’t have the money or didn’t have anything at the time, we helped them out, like the elderly.”
The city remains in a daze from the aftereffects of the EF-3 tornado, which tore through the St. Louis area on May 16. Winds as high as 150 mph devastated whole blocks of homes and businesses in predominantly marginalized Black communities. The violent storm left five people dead and another 38 injured.
Covington’s home was leveled by the tornado and her business across the street was also damaged. The community’s very survival is at stake, she said.
“It won’t be a neighborhood, Covington warned. “These people and we have lived in this area for eternity, and to get it just taken away and nobody helped us, helped these kids, and helped these people, no, that’s not fair.”
The St. Louis area was already reeling from storms that hit the eastern and southern parts of Missouri back in March. President Donald Trump didn’t approve a major disaster declaration — clearing the way for FEMA assistance — until last Friday.
The future of FEMA, the federal agency commissioned to provide relief to communities hit by natural disasters, remains in flux. The president has suggested disaster relief should be handled by states, not the federal government.
FEMA faced a multibillion-dollar deficit heading into this year, leading the agency to announce it would halt some rebuilding projects to better equip itself financially to handle future emergencies.
Now that it’s hit close to home, Republicans are rethinking their support for the FEMA cuts.
Earlier this week, Missouri Sen Josh Hawley, who last year voted against a bill providing more disaster relief funds for the agency, said FEMA’s help was urgently needed. After touring areas hit hardest by the storm, Hawley declared they would “need lots of assistance to rebuild.”
Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe reached out to the president on Sunday, asking him to approve a major disaster declaration to provide federal assistance to St. Louis, St. Louis County and six southeast Missouri counties.
The bill presently sits on the president’s desk, awaiting his signature.
Kehoe requested that FEMA provide temporary housing, home repairs, and other necessities for those impacted by the storms.
“It is abundantly clear that Missouri families need rapid federal assistance to rebuild homes and lives, and to continue moving forward,” Kehoe said in a statement. “We are requesting federal assistance to quickly get desperately needed funds flowing to individuals and families as we prepare to document the need for federal assistance to remove debris and repair damaged infrastructure in the days ahead.”
St. Louis residents say can’t afford to wait much longer. The city’s Fox affiliate painted a glum picture in a story that aired Wednesday.
“The devastation is indescribable as an apocalyptic scene stretches across the Academy/Sherman Park neighborhood. It’s eerily quiet, with the occasional sound of a homeowner working alone to clean up, using a chainsaw to get through the brush block his front door.”
Private volunteers have provided dumpsters along the street and the heavy equipment needed for such a massive clean-up.
“It was like the tornado was in my backyard and it was beating on the back of my house,” resident Kim Brooks told the station.
“I’m not really a political person, but I haven’t seen ‘em,” said Brooks, asked if the neighborhood has received any assistance from the government.
