St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer said Wednesday the city’s Fire Department should have been made aware that its equipment to sound the outdoor warning sirens for severe weather did not work sooner than Tuesday.
The department discovered the problem when it tested the system as part of a new emergency response protocol that puts the Fire Department in charge of activating the sirens. It was a job previously held by the City Emergency Management Agency.
There has been an activation console at the Fire Department’s dispatch center since 1999, when the city installed its current siren system. Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson said it had been tested since then – but he did not know how recently.
“We’re pulling all the logs, and we’re compiling that information to make sure that we have all the records correct,” he said. “That will be provided.”
Jenkerson said he was confident that the department would get its console working and install redundancies.
“If that means that I'm up in the ceiling, pulling line and making sure I've got correct connections, it's going to happen,” he said.
The city will be testing the system over the next few days to make sure the protocol is working and to see how many sirens were damaged in the storm.
“We know that testing the system is traumatic, and we wouldn't do it if we did not believe that it was absolutely necessary,” Spencer said.
Spencer put CEMA Commissioner Sarah Russell on leave on Tuesday night over the failure to sound the sirens. Fire Capt. John Walk has taken the job on an interim basis. The mayor has also launched an external investigation into what happened.
“I'm a bit shocked and disappointed, but I also want to be clear that I am confident in what we have done over the last 48 hours to ensure that we can reliably activate the system, should we need to,” Spencer said.
A lack of clarity, including confusion over who had primary activation responsibility, was already evident. Jenkerson said it was the department’s understanding that it had secondary responsibility to sound the sirens if CEMA was unable to do so. A document from CEMA dated August 2021, however, places the primary activation point at Fire Department headquarters.
Russell and their staff were at a workshop off-site on Friday, May 16 as the storm bore down on the region. For that reason, they called the Fire Department to ask that it activate the sirens.
In a recording released Tuesday night, a dispatcher can be heard talking with Russell about a tornado warning that had been issued and clarifying how long the warning would last.
“3:15, got it,” Russell can be heard telling the dispatcher, before adding, “You’ve got the sirens?” “Yes,” the dispatcher responds. “All right, thank you so much,” Russell replies.
“The directive to activate the sirens was not clear,” Spencer said Wednesday. “This cannot happen when a tornado is ripping through our community. Our safety depends on clear and direct communication.”
