Latest news with #CEMA
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Tornado victims struggle with lack of aid in St. Louis, fear looting
ST. LOUIS – Residents say they are experiencing a lack of aid following the devastating tornado that hit the St. Louis region last Friday, leaving many displaced. City officials reported that thousands of buildings suffered damage, and five people lost their lives. One St. Louisan shared with FOX 2 that the tornado struck his home in north St. Louis, tearing off the roof completely. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Lindell Briscoe, who lives in the O'Fallon neighborhood, says he and his family are without a roof and electricity. Briscoe said that he has not had any help for the damages. So far, he and his family have only received food and water, which they gladly appreciate. However, they need much more, according to Briscoe. They fear that if they leave their home, looters may seize the opportunity to take their belongings. 'My valuables and my family are here,' Briscoe told FOX 2. 'It's hard to leave when you grew up here your whole life. I have never experienced something like this ever.' Briscoe told FOX 2 that he and his family did not hear any sirens on Friday, which has been a frequent concern of many residents. Earlier this week, St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer admitted that there was 'human failure' in decision-making when the storm came. As of May 21, Sarah Russell, the Commissioner of the City Emergency Management Agency (CEMA), has been placed on leave for the failure of signaling the city's siren. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CBC
21-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Legal challenge of the Yukon's Civil Emergency Measures Act fails for 2nd time
The Yukon Court of Appeal has dismissed a legal challenge to the territory's Civil Emergency Measures Act (CEMA) for a second time. The original lawsuit, filed in 2020, was dismissed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Suzanne Duncan in November 2023. The seven plaintiffs, primarily represented by Ross Mercer, appealed the decision in December 2023. The 2020 lawsuit and 2023 appeal both argued that CEMA — which was used to create and enforce public health rules and restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic — was unconstitutional and gave politicians too much power without sufficient oversight. They wanted the legislation struck down. The appeal says Duncan "fundamentally misunderstood" their argument, including the role of unwritten constitutional principles and the importance of the Yukon Act's principle of reasonable government. They also claim Duncan mischaracterized their motivation as a political disagreement with decisions made during the pandemic, instead of a broader argument against CEMA. Justice G. Bruce Butler dismissed the appeal in a decision published on May 16. It was supported by Chief Justice Leonard Marchand and Justice Sheila MacPherson. Butler backed Duncan's reasoning against Mercer's arguments. He said Mercer's claim that CEMA overrides responsible government is "fanciful and entirely lacking in merit," and accused Mercer of quoting various authorities out of context to make his argument. Butler said Mercer ignored the practical role of CEMA during the pandemic, which only allowed the minister power in direct response to the stated emergency. The Yukon Legislature also continued to debate and pass legislation during the pandemic while CEMA was in place. Butler agreed with a submission from the Yukon government, which said CEMA itself was a product of democratic process as it was passed by the Yukon Legislative Assembly and the same process, not a judge, should be used to change it.
CBS News
21-05-2025
- Climate
- CBS News
Sirens didn't go off for St. Louis tornado — what are the activation rules in Chicago, suburbs?
The head of the City Emergency Management Agency in St. Louis has now been placed on paid leave, as an investigation has been launched into why the city's tornado warning system was not activated before a deadly tornado ripped through the area this past Friday. Five people were killed and dozens of others were injured by the EF-3 twister, which hit parts of Central West End and North City in St. Louis. St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer said CEMA Commissioner Sara Russell was not in the office when the storms hit, so she was unable to push the button that triggers the sirens. That got CBS News Chicago wondering about the siren protocol in Chicago and the suburbs, and who is in charge of activating the air-raid sirens in those places. The answer is that it depends on where one is — the policy and plan are different in Chicago than they are in Naperville, for example. Sometimes, the sirens are automatically triggered by the National Weather Service. Other times, they are manually turned on, and a person is relied upon to press the button. In St. Louis — where someone also has to push an alert button — Mayor Cara Spencer explained a "failure in protocol," because it was not clear whose role it was to do so. She took the responsibility away from CEMA Commissioner Russell. "And we now have somebody form the fire department located at CEMA 24 hours a day to push that button, should we need it, while we ensure that the fire department can activate that system flawlessly moving forward. We will be conducting additional tests today at noon to ensure that the system is working." The National Weather Service issues the tornado warnings that warrant siren activation. "Ideally, goal-wise, these warnings are going to give 10 minutes-plus of lead time," said Ricky Castro, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Castro explained that while the NWS issues tornado warnings, it is up to local governments whether or not they need the alerts, and how they distribute the information. In other words, the National Weather Service does not set off warning sirens, though not everyone understands that. "We're not the ones in charge of that," Castro said. "We get social media comments. We'll get sometimes emails, phone calls, 'Why did this siren go off?'" In places like Naperville, where an EF3 tornado touched down in 2021, the 26 outdoor warning sirens are activated automatically when the National Weather Service issues a warning. In Chicago, the air-raid sirens only go off when the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications turns them on. There are 112 sirens standing one to two miles apart, and they can be activated one-by-one, by siren zone — of which there are 12 — or citywide. "It requires a fast decision-making process, and ideally as well, people will kind of know their safety plan in advance," Castro said. Other Chicago suburbs' siren activation protocols are as follows: Plainfield has 12 outdoor warning sirens activated manually by digital radio system. They can be activated through the village dispatch center upon direction of authorized village personnel, or though the Plainfield Emergency Management Agency. Arlington Heights also has 12 outdoor warning sirens. They are activated by Northwest Central Dispatch, using a controller that can activate individual communities or the whole village. While the sirens are activated manually now, the village is working with its vendor to have the sirens activated automatically when a warning is issued. Aurora has 20 sirens, with two more being installed. They are activated manually by the emergency department team, or by a 24-hour warning point at the 911 Public Safety Answering Plant. Oak Brook has five sirens, the fifth of which waws added recently. The sirens are activated automatically using the Commander One alerting system from Federal Signal, which also manufactures many sirens. With Commander One, if the NWS issues a tornado warning, and the warning area touches or falls within the village border, all five sirens are activated right away.
Daily Mail
21-05-2025
- Climate
- Daily Mail
St. Louis SUSPENDS emergency boss for failing to deploy tornado siren before twisters that killed FIVE
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. 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. '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. 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.
CBS News
21-05-2025
- Climate
- CBS News
St. Louis tornado sirens didn't sound in deadly storm. Now a city commissioner has been placed on leave.
St. Louis' emergency management chief has been placed on administrative leave, the city's mayor said, after sirens meant to sound during a tornado warning failed to be activated ahead of Friday's deadly twister. Sarah Russell, commissioner of the City Emergency Management Agency in St. Louis, will remain on paid administrative leave as an external investigation proceeds into what went wrong. St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer already ordered an internal probe in the immediate aftermath of the siren failure, when National Weather Service radar indicated that a tornado touched down between 2:30 and 2:50 p.m. local time. It initially struck near central St. Louis before ripping through the area, with officials estimating some 5,000 people were affected. Five people in St. Louis were killed in the severe weather, officials said. Spencer described it as "one of the worst storms — absolutely." There is a system of 60 outdoor sirens stationed around St. Louis, which are meant to be activated once the National Weather Service issues a tornado warning for the area as it did on Friday. There are two places where they can be activated: the CEMA office and the Fire Department. According to Spencer's office, which announced Russell's leave Tuesday, the commissioner was attending an offsite workshop with other emergency management staff when the tornado warning came down, and that prevented them from activating the sirens from their agency's main building, about a half mile away. Russell instead contacted the Fire Department to activate the sirens, but the directive was ambiguous, the mayor said. Her office released the recording of Russell's call to the department, in which she confirms they are aware of the NWS warning and briefly clarifies the timing of it before saying, "OK, you got the sirens?" The person at the fire department replies "Yes, ma'am," and the call ends. "The direction was not clear," Spencer said at a news conference Wednesday morning about the phone call. Russel did not clearly direct the person at the Fire Department to press the button to activate the sirens, she said, adding, "It's my understanding that the button was not pushed." However, even if someone had pressed the button at the Fire Department, city officials learned Tuesday that the button was not working. "Work to repair the button began Tuesday afternoon and is expected to be completed within days," Spencer's office said. The button at the CEMA office was functioning, and Fire Department personnel will be stationed there 24/7 to activate the sirens if needed, the office said. Spencer also signed an executive order Tuesday to change the siren activation protocol, putting the Fire Department solely in charge of activating the warning system. While the standard operating procedure for activating the sirens says the primary activation point is located at the Fire Department headquarters, the de facto protocol had been that CEMA would activate the system at its office and contact the Fire Department if it could not. "With the mayor's executive order, this lack of clarity has now been eliminated," Spencer's office said. Until a permanent replacement for Russell is found, St. Louis fire captain John Walk will serve as the interim emergency management commissioner.
