Mayor Cara Spencer said Friday that changes at the federal level hobbled St. Louis’ tornado response in the first 100 days after the storm.
“Right off the bat when the tornado hit, you know, our office was really gobsmacked, if you will, by the lack of engagement, the direct engagement on the federal front,” Spencer said.
There is still significant work ahead as St. Louis continues to recover from the May 16 tornado, including massive amounts of debris removal that Spencer said would be best handled by the Army Corps of Engineers.
“It would take years for the city to be able to administer that level of contracts and really do that enormous amount of work,” Spencer said. “I think if we can get the Army Corps here, we'll see that accelerated tremendously, and that's why we're pushing so hard to get that work done.”
Spencer compared the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to the St. Louis tornado to the Joplin tornado in 2011. She said after that EF5 tornado hit, FEMA was almost immediately on the ground leading the response, setting up temporary housing and coordinating debris removal, but in St. Louis, that was all left to the city.
“In this enormous time of turmoil at the national level, you know, we were really left to do the vast majority of response here alone,” Spencer said on St. Louis on the Air. “And what that looks like is trying to figure out exactly how to do all these pieces.”
President Donald Trump has said he wants local governments to shoulder more of the work that FEMA currently does.
"We want to wean off of FEMA, and we want to bring it back to the state level," the president said in June, NPR reported.
This week, more than 190 FEMA employees from across the country sent a letter to Congress saying the administration’s actions are already preventing the agency from carrying out its mission to respond to disasters.
The employees wrote that leadership is unqualified and their decisions “hinder the swift execution of our mission, and dismiss experienced staff whose institutional knowledge and relationships are vital to ensure effective emergency management.”
The official who was the acting head of FEMA from January to early May also spoke out this week, saying changes at the agency are delaying disaster aid.
“FEMA is saving money which is good due to the astronomical U.S. Debt from Congress,” Cameron Hamilton, who was appointed by Trump, posted. “Despite this, FEMA staff are responding to entirely new forms of bureaucracy now that is lengthening wait times for claim recipients, and delaying the deployment of time sensitive resources.”
Spencer said the federal government has pulled back and now, in the middle of disaster recovery, St. Louis is grappling with the consequences.
“It's something our nation needs to be asking ourselves,” Spencer said. “If we're going to … really put that burden on the local government entities, we've got to have time to prepare, and we've got to have the resources locally to be able to do that work.”
