Latest news with #SarahRussell
New York Post
23-05-2025
- Climate
- New York Post
St. Louis emergency management chief on leave after failing to sound sirens for deadly tornado: report
The city of St Louis placed its emergency management chief on leave after the staffer failed to activate the tornado sirens before a deadly twister tore through the Midwestern metropolis, according to reports. Five people were killed, dozens were injured and thousands more were impacted by the tornado last Friday that critics say was made dramatically worse by the failure of the city's emergency manager to sound the alarm after receiving a National Weather Service alert, according to CBS News. Sarah Russell, commissioner of the Missouri City Emergency Management Agency for St. Louis, was not at the relevant CEMA office station just before 2:30 p.m. local time when the warning was issued — but was instead at an off-site workshop, the outlet reported. Advertisement 3 Sarah Russell, commissioner of St. Louis' Emergency Management Agency, failed to sound tornado sirens ahead of a deadly storm last Friday. CBS News Russell was forced to call the St. Louis Fire Department, which is the only other location from which the tornado sirens can be turned on, CBS reported. St. Louis Fire Department officials said Russell gave 'ambiguous' orders and therefore they did not sound the 60 outdoor tornado sirens placed around the city, Mayor Cara Spencer revealed, according to the station. Advertisement '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,' Mayor Spencer said in a statement. However, fire officials revealed Tuesday that even if they had received the order clearly, SLFD could not have sounded the sirens because the emergency button in their offices was not working, CBS reported. 'I have been shocked and remain shocked, and frankly a bit horrified, by the issues in the system,' Spencer said at a press conference, according to St. Louis Magazine. Russell, who identifies as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, is a longtime employee of the department, according to their LinkedIn page and began as commissioner in 2021. Advertisement 3 St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer said she was 'shocked' at the poor planning and execution of the Midwestern city's tornado warning systems. CBS News The commissioner was called a social media expert and a 'consultant for several departments and organizations as they look to engage in using social media for local government or emergency response purpose,' according to a profile since scrubbed from the St. Louis government's website, The Blaze reported. Since the siren failure, Russell has been subjected to multiple online death threats, but none were deemed credible by St. Louis police, according to STL Today. Russell will remain on administrative leave pending the completion of an external investigation, the mayor said. Advertisement 3 Five people were killed, dozens were injured, and thousands were impacted by the powerful storm last week. CBS News St. Louis Fire Department Captain John Walk will serve as interim emergency management commissioner in the meantime. Republican Governor Mike Kehoe revealed Thursday that both President Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem have pledged federal help for Missouri as it recovers from the storm. 'This could be the catalyst that really brings St. Louis back to that incredible city we all know it could be,' Gov. Kehoe said at a press conference Thursday. 'I don't want to discount the tragedy and the incredibly tough times people are going through, but I'm optimistic.' The National Weather Service reported that the tornado touched down between 2:30 p.m. and 2:50 p.m. in Clayton, Missouri, on Friday — leaving a trail of decimation across the Gateway to the West.
New York Times
21-05-2025
- Climate
- New York Times
Warning Sirens Were Silent Ahead of Deadly Tornado in St. Louis, City Says
Just before a tornado descended on St. Louis with a roar — killing five people and injuring dozens during its sweep through the city on Friday — there was a silence where there should not have been. There was no wailing warning from the city. No high-pitched alarm. Nothing to warn the city's residents and send them scrambling to their basements or bathtubs. Only wind. The city's sirens to warn people of a tornado threat were never activated by the City Emergency Management Agency, and a backup to activate the mechanism that is operated by the Fire Department was broken. Mayor Cara Spencer has placed the city's emergency manager, Sarah Russell, on paid administrative leave while an investigation is conducted into a series of failures, Ms. Spencer's office said in a statement issued on Tuesday. The mayor's office also said that it had changed the protocol for activating the warning system as a result of what had happened. The city's emergency management agency 'exists, in large part, to alert the public to dangers caused by severe weather, and the office failed to do that in the most horrific and deadly storm our city has seen in my lifetime,' Ms. Spencer said in her statement. Ms. Russell could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday. City officials confirmed that one of five people killed in Friday's storm was outside when the tornado ripped through St. Louis. About 40 people were injured in the storm, but city officials did not know how many of them were outdoors when they were hurt. St. Louis was among the cities hit by raging storms that produced tornadoes late last week, tearing through the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. At least 28 were killed. According to the mayor's office, Ms. Russell was not at the emergency management office — where the button to activate the tornado warning alarms sits — but blocks away at a training session when the storm hit, despite earlier forecasts that warned of severe weather. On Friday, the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for the St. Louis area at 2:34 p.m. Central time. Nine minutes later, at 2:45 p.m., a tornado was confirmed, moving east over St. Louis at 50 miles per hour. Ms. Russell placed a call to the Fire Department, hoping to pass the baton, but the message was muddled and unclear, the mayor's office 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,' according to the statement. Even if the message to sound the sirens had been clear, the Fire Department's button itself was broken. That malfunction was discovered only on Tuesday, during routine testing after the tornado damage, the mayor's office said. It was Ms. Russell's job to make sure that the system was working properly, the city said. On Tuesday, Ms. Spencer signed an order to change the siren activation protocol in order to avoid similar failures in the future. The plan includes giving the Fire Department sole responsibility to activate the siren from an office that is staffed at all times.
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.
Indianapolis Star
18-05-2025
- Climate
- Indianapolis Star
St. Louis preparing as more storms could come to devastated area: See forecast
St. Louis officials are warning residents about incoming weather that could impact areas devastated by recent storms that have swept through the region. Over two dozen people are dead and over 194,000 are still without power as states in the Midwest and southeast are forecasted to get slammed by another batch of severe storms, according to AccuWeather. "If you have not been impacted by this storm, we ask you to prepare," Sarah Russell, the commissioner of the St. Louis Emergency Management Agency, said at a press conference on Sunday, May 18. "If you have been impacted by this storm, you have some additional things you need to think about with preparedness." Russell said anyone in the city of St. Louis can sign up for NotifySTL, a system that sends notifications via phone, text or email to residents, businesses and visitors in the city in the event of an emergency. Signing up is "critically important," Russell said. "That is one of the most thorough ways we have to reach people in the city." Anyone who suspects their home will not be safe to stay in during the storm is asked to seek shelter elsewhere, according to Russell. People should take shelter at a local church, at the home of a friend or family member or an evacuation shelter. During the May 18 press conference, an official from the Red Cross announced that the Red Cross shelter located at the Grace United Methodist Church is full. But, according to the city's website, two other shelters are open with capacity: As of 2 p.m. ET May 18, Missouri has 44,920 customers without power, according to USA TODAY's power outage tracker. In total, over 128,000 customers are without power across Missouri, Michigan, Alabama and Kentucky. Tornadoes and floods could threaten dozens of states across the country, according to AccuWeather's forecast. There was also a high risk of severe weather issued the afternoon of Sunday, May 18 for parts of Oklahoma and Kansas. Severe thunderstorms are expected to develop through Sunday night, and winds from the weather pattern will shift eastward early in the week. "Travelers across the region should remain alert for hazards such as debris on roadways, downed power lines, damaging hail and flooded areas over the coming days," according to AccuWeather. States across the central U.S. are forecasted to experience the following, according to AccuWeather: According to AccuWeather, storms may impact New Orleans, northern Florida, parts of the Carolinas and Washington, D.C.
