St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer says changes at the federal level hobbled the city’s tornado response in the first 100 days after the spring 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
Friday.
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 former 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,” said Cameron Hamilton, who was appointed by Trump. “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 midst of disaster, 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.”
This article originally appeared here.
Sadly, these “circumstantial facts” will fall on the deaf ears of those who simply want to condemn sincere efforts because they are opponents and perpetual critics. Despite knowing there are processes involving written regulations and rules with required timelines, just as timelines that prohibit their publication of a different daily column for this newspaper, some columnists persists in “numbering” the days these devastating conditions have persisted since the storm as if they are non existent. They write as if officials can retrieve sufficient funds from their personal bank accounts. They could, given their brilliance, offer potential solutions but that would never fit their “chosen agendas.”