FEMA Taking Their Sweet Time Assessing St. Louis Tornado Damage

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St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer pleaded with the federal government to help with federal aid following Friday’s devastating tornadoes that destroyed large sections of the city’s north side, but those pleas may very well be falling on deaf ears.

As Spencer explained, all of the state and local politicians have already come to the city to assess the damage, but FEMA isn’t expected to show up until Wednesday, and as the Columbia Missourian explained, even that may not make a difference for the suffering homeowners in the area:

Federal officials will begin Wednesday to assess damage in tornado-ravaged neighborhoods on the city’s north side.

But it’s not clear if or when help will be available.

Federal Emergency Management Agency staffers will also tour parts of St. Louis County and five other counties damaged by Friday’s storms, FEMA spokesperson Ryan Lowry-Lee said. They’ll document the destruction with pictures and assess damage to uninsured buildings.

Once the assessment is complete, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe will ask President Donald Trump to declare the tornado destruction a “major disaster,” a government term that means state and local officials can’t fully address the destruction without federal help.

“Local first responders, officials, businesses and volunteer groups are working around the clock to recover,” Kehoe said in a news release Monday. “But the task before us is tremendously large and recovery will not be easy.”

If Trump approves Kehoe’s request, the federal government could unlock money for recovery, including assistance for homeowners and renters whose property was uninsured.

Hawley was urging the feds to act quickly, but as the article explained, there needs to be a major disaster declaration for that to happen, and they still haven’t responded to the last batch of storms that came through in March:

It can take weeks for FEMA to declare a major disaster after a governor asks for help. Missouri officials are still waiting on federal assistance for storms and tornadoes in mid-March that struck Missouri, killing 13 people and damaging homes, businesses and public property.

Five tornadoes touched down during those storms in the St. Louis area, and two people in the region died as a result of them.

The governor in early April asked Trump to release federal money to help with recovery from those storms. The state’s request hadn’t been approved as of Monday afternoon, said Gabriel Picard, a spokesperson for Kehoe.

Hawley said Monday he’s “not happy” Missouri is still waiting on that request.

Yeah, well, maybe he and his fellow Republicans in Congress shouldn’t have been sitting back and doing nothing while Trump and his DOGE wrecking crew decided it would be a good idea to destroy FEMA.

Here’s more on Spencer’s appearance on MSNBC above:

St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer told MSNBC on Monday that FEMA had yet to assist after the city was ravaged by a tornado days prior. […]

During an appearance on MSNBC on Monday morning, Spencer told Ana Cabrera that the city was in desperate need of federal aid.

“I can tell you that on the local level, every organization, community member, elected official has been on point,” Spencer said. “What we need right now is federal assistance. This is where FEMA and the federal government has got to come in and help communities. Our city cannot shoulder this alone. The state of Missouri cannot shoulder this alone,” she said, adding:

We need partners at the national level, at the federal level, to step up and help — and this is not just true for St. Louis. Cities across the nation, when they are experiencing disasters such as this, this is what the federal government is for. We need your help. We need the help of the broader community. We have set up a fund to help bring in some funding right off the bat, just to bridge that gap, but we need federal assistance.

That prompted Cabrera to ask if FEMA was on the ground in St. Louis yet. Spencer said the agency was not.

Fred Wellman, who, like myself, is from St. Louis, had some thoughts on the devastation, what Trump has done to FEMA and the National Weather Service, and the useless Republicans governing our state that you can read here: A tornado tells a bigger story.

Missouri may be a red state, but north St. Louis City is full of black and brown people Trump hates and knows didn’t vote for him. I won’t be surprised if he refuses to declare a disaster here. I haven’t seen a single comment from him expressing an ounce of concern for the victims in Missouri or Kentucky.

Just imagine if that were Biden refusing to even acknowledge that the devastation had happened. It would be all Fox was talking about for weeks.