Johnel Langerston Sr. was hundreds of miles away in Kentucky with his daughter when his phone rang the afternoon of May 16. It was his wife, La Tasha Langerston.
“[There was a] panic in her voice describing the scene,” he said.
La Tasha Langerston was on her way to pick up their 17-year-old son, Johnel Langerston Jr., from school. By then, the sunlight had been replaced with menacing dark clouds. High winds uprooted several trees around her. Debris was scattered everywhere. She was in the path of the tornado.
“Keep going, just keep going,” La Tasha Langerston recalled her husband telling her on the phone. “‘I don't feel safe. Stay on the phone with me.’ He was just like, ‘Whatever you do, don't stop. Just keep driving.’”
When Langerston knew his wife and son were safe, he hung up and breathed a sigh of relief. It was short-lived. Soon after, his neighbor sent him a text with a slew of photos of the exterior of his home in St. Louis’ College Hill neighborhood. It had been hit.
“I'm just in turmoil because my mind is like, ‘OK, I know we don't have insurance,’” Langerston Sr. said. “And the whole roof was gone. That's all I can see.”
The tornado would claim the lives of four people and displace an unknown number of residents across north St. Louis. The Langerstons’ home would become one of the more than 10,000 homes and buildings across the city that were significantly damaged or destroyed.
But unrelenting challenges, including securing individual disaster relief aid to rebuild and turbulent weather, have made recovery in the aftermath of the tornado a nightmare.
Surviving the storm
La Tasha and Johnel Langerston Jr. saw how severe the damage was when they got home. Downed trees and branches covered the grounds. The tornado had peeled off roughly 75% of the roof of the gym of their shared home and literacy nonprofit Urban Born.
“I had never seen the sky through our gym,” Langerston Jr. recalled. “I'm like, ‘Dang, I didn't realize how bad it really was.’ I just knew it had to be fixed. But as we walked through the whole house, we saw the basement, and the third and second floor and the stage messed up. It was much, much, much worse.”
Urban Born came about after the Langerstons left California in 2012 in search of a fresh start. After Googling the worst place to live, the family of four landed on St. Louis. They purchased the old St. James United Church of Christ campus in the city’s College Hill neighborhood. The Langerstons invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to renovate and convert the expansive property.
“Our mission has always been [that] it's easier to catch on now than to catch up later,” Langerston Sr. said.
The concept is simple: Provide middle school-age kids with mentorship and improve their literacy skills. In exchange, the kids and their coaches could use Urban Born’s 50,000-square-foot gym free of charge.
The program is now in an indefinite hiatus.
"I've already spent a gang of money just to get the place so we can have this,” Langerston Sr. said. “Now I have to spend that money again to get it back.”
The entranceway separating the kitchen and the gym was destroyed. Their living quarters were damaged. Windows around the property were broken. Fallen bricks were scattered throughout. Their basement was covered in water. The gym looked like a swimming pool.
"It's one thing to survive the tornado, but the rebuilding of it, if you have [the] audacity to not give up and stay, that is even more challenging,” said Langerston Sr.
The Langerstons, alongside friends and volunteers, filled up nearly four 40-foot dumpsters with debris. Langerston Sr. knew he could replace the gym’s roof himself. However, his confidence slowly morphed into frustration.
In the following weeks, the damage the tornado left behind was compounded by the weather and inaction by every level of government. Disaster aid relief funds were nowhere in sight as rain continued to pummel damaged St. Louis homes for weeks on end. The heat wave only made the damage worse.
The compromised roof was a never-ending nightmare. Langerston Sr. spent $600 to cover the gym’s hardwood floors with plastic to protect them. They spent countless hours in a hot gym working against the clock to remove water from the floors with a shop vacuum as the rain poured in.
“[Johnel Jr.] doesn't want to come in here and vacuum for three and four hours in this humid air,” Langerston Sr. said. “No one does. The floor is already destroyed. It's already all bad. It's a nightmare for me to have to say, ‘Hey, man, stop your work and go out there.’”
Ultimately, the rain, heat and humidity buckled the hardwood floors. It will cost him upward of $70,000 to fix. Rainwater seeped into the basement, and black mold took over the walls and ceiling. He rented industrial-size fans and dehumidifiers for a month but had to return them due to the cost.
The basement is where the Langerstons hold the educational component of Urban Born. The classrooms were filled with desks, chairs and books, and the floor was customized to look like the basketball court above it. Some of the chairs and desks were salvageable, but all of the books had to be tossed.
"It's devastating,” Langerston Sr. said. “Usually around this time of the year, obviously, we would be packed with children.”
So far the Langerstons have spent roughly $120,000 on the roof and other repairs. Langerston Sr. estimates it will take as much as $230,000 to get the entire building up to code.
‘Our building is falling down’
Nearly 70% of homeowners in three north St. Louis ZIP codes affected by the tornado, including the College Hill neighborhood, were uninsured or underinsured, according to data from the Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance.
The Langerstons are no exception.
As a result, the couple applied for FEMA aid. An agency inspector came to assess the damage on their property. However, she did not believe they lived on the property even though they had converted it from a commercial to a residential building.
“[It’s] quite a bit of land,” Langerston Sr. said. “And we're Black. Who's going to actually buy all of this and live here like this? She couldn't believe it. In fact, she insisted on seeing the kitchen.”
They showed her their tax records. She inspected every room, took photos and filed their paperwork. FEMA repeatedly denied the Langerstons claim.
"Who are you helping?” La Tasha Langerston said. “We're checking the boxes. You sent a representative out. So it's not just our word. So everything [is] being proved that we're not trying to scam you or anything like that. You don't want a stranger coming into your property like that, but in order to get the property back up to continue to serve the people in the community it was worth it.”
The Langerstons also applied for Red Cross aid but were denied.
St. Louis allocated $18 million in Rams settlement money to aid in recovery efforts. St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer, said the city can’t distribute individual aid at this time because FEMA will not provide assistance if the city is providing it. During a July press conference, Spencer said that despite rejections, people should continue to apply for FEMA aid.
But St. Louisans like the Langerstons can’t wait.
"I can't sit around and wait for some help,” Langerston Sr. said. “Our building is falling down. I don't have the luxury to spend hours [on the phone]. I called FEMA, and I was [on] hold. They said I had a 2 ½-hour wait time. Who can sit around for 2 ½ hours? I don't have that kind of time. So my faith in the system has been broken. You get one denial and then another denial. What am I applying for?"
St. Louis Public Radio reached out to FEMA about the Langerstons’ repeated denials. A spokesperson could not give specifics about their application but said someone would look into it. Within three days, their status was upgraded to under review.
“I was very emotional,” Langerston Sr. said. “[It] is not one of my characteristics. I mean I'm just like, OK, these folks gotta wait until somebody tells them from somebody of power to help someone who's really down here on their knees."
La Tasha Langerston agreed.
"I just felt like hope was restored, that it's a possibility that the help will come,” she said. “I hope it just won't be stagnant.”
FEMA did approve the Langerstons aid request for $12,000. It’s a small win for Langerstons, but rebuilding remains an uphill battle.
“I counted FEMA out,” Langerston Sr. said. “At this point, I'm going to make it happen no matter what. If you come you come, if you don't you don't. But I don't have faith in the system like that."
