urbanSTL

jshank83 wrote:Part of me wonders if this situation was at play. Although I don’t have time to go through all the timelines of who said what when.

CEMA didn’t have anyone at their post. They call the FD to set off sirens. They push their button to set them off not knowing their button wasn’t working. So they think they set it off. Then come reports some people heard sirens some didn’t so they think at least some sirens went off which mean they think their button worked. That leads to a bunch of confusion on what actually happened until they figured out their button was broken.

Then the question who is responsible for checking the button. Was it FD since it’s their button or CEMA since I assume they are supposed to make sure the system works.

If that is the case there definitely would be confusion with what is said from “no one pushed the button” meaning it didn’t work.

But anyway, I wanted to throw that scenario out there.

This scenario seems entirely plausible. One additional question that still isn’t clear based on the protocol is who is the primary owner of pushing the button between CEMA and FD? Additionally, does the FD need the green light to push the button from CEMA in the case of a tornado warning?

I'd say the policy was vague.  Published policy does not seem to match what's been going on for the past few years.

And I'd hate to be the firefighter assigned to man the button 24/7 until they figure it out.  Hopefully they assigned that task to someone on light duty and didn't pull someone else off a truck.

^^ From the audio it seems that we know the Fire Department was given the green light to activate the signal and Fire said it would [edit: but it is a good question of whether Fire can't do so without CEMA approval. But in this case it appears they were in timely communication.] Again my question is whether Fire did or did not attempt to activate.  If the button did not work yesterday and had to activate the signals from the CEMA site, I assume there is a decent probability that it did not work on Friday. 

Curious Are we going to see a lot of demo of buildings being done? Especially on the north side? Its as if this tornado event will speed up the taking down of numerous buildings (some of which needed to come down in my opinion).

dweebe wrote: ↑

May 21, 2025

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

May 21, 2025

Spencer was lying.   Russell was lying.  It’s some really strange devotion that you can’t see that

What are your demands? What would satisfy you? Spencer's impeachment and both the fire chief and safety commissioner fired? Is that what it's going to take?

Or do we need to chop their heads off and put them on pikes in front of city hall as a warning to the next people that hold those positions?

Both the commissioner of fire and CEMA have protections with civil service rules, the process to demote both should be started. And the City to apologize to the families of those who died and got injured to ***** up the alarm. Regardless of how the ***** up happened, the ***** up happened. Multiple families have come out and said they wondered if their family member would have had a different outcome if the siren did go off.

Heartwarming

quincunx wrote: ↑

May 21, 2025

Sen, Hawley saying all the right things.

Where has Wesley Bell been?

chris fuller wrote: ↑

May 21, 2025

Curious Are we going to see a lot of demo of buildings being done? Especially on the north side? Its as if this tornado event will speed up the taking down of numerous buildings (some of which needed to come down in my opinion).

Been thinking about that.  Seems like it would be hard to avoid...  
Privately owned buildings - Un-insured: Owner would probably walk away, list for sale
Privately owned buildings - Insured or under-insured: Owner takes settlement, invests settlement money elsewhere, list for sale. Some owner-occupied buildings would rebuild in-place, but a) for what compelling reason would they, b) what percentage would remain
LRA owned buildings: I have heard these are insured, but not sure.  Does it make sense to rebuild structures in place, or take the settlement and reallocate the funds in a more strategic manner (i.e. building in more concentrated pattern in targeted areas).  Do you rebuild fewer expensive large brick homes, or more smaller more affordable stick built homes?

Not sure how you could avoid/prevent one or more McKee-type large-scale land acquisitions.  That is essentially the plot of "Twisters".

Curious how others see this playing out.

He was at one of the pressers

TalkinDev wrote: ↑

May 21, 2025

LRA owned buildings: I have heard these are insured, but not sure.  Does it make sense to rebuild structures in place, or take the settlement and reallocate the funds in a more strategic manner (i.e. building in more concentrated pattern in targeted areas).  Do you rebuild fewer expensive large brick homes, or more smaller more affordable stick built homes?

LRA buildings are not insured. It would be prohibitively expensive even if they could manage to get insurance on vacant buildings in poor to terrible condition.

quincunx wrote: ↑

May 21, 2025

He was at one of the pressers

Ok. Just seen a ton of coverage about Eric Schmitt and Josh Hawley but none about Bell.

Every single one of these press conferences regarding the sirens just opens up a whole new set of questions

When the question about this call from Russel to Fire was asked today, the Mayor said the ask by Russell to activate the sirens was unclear but at the same time Mayor said nobody’s talked to the dispatcher to see if they thought it was unclear. So, who determined it was unclear?

dbInSouthCity wrote:Every single one of these press conferences regarding the sirens just opens up a whole new set of questions

When the question about this call from Russel to Fire was asked today, the Mayor said the ask by Russell to activate the sirens was unclear but at the same time Mayor said nobody’s talked to the dispatcher to see if they thought it was unclear. So, who determined it was unclear?

It’s pretty obvious that it’s the Mayor’s opinion that the call was unclear. I tend to agree.

The only thing unclear is literally everything Spencer says about what happened.

I'm just dying to know the topic of that Friday workshop. Please, someone.

Auggie wrote:The only thing unclear is literally everything Spencer says about what happened.

That’s why she took a couple days to sort through what actually happened. It’s hard to track what happened when the protocol is unclear.

leeharveyawesome wrote: ↑

May 21, 2025

I'm just dying to know the topic of that Friday workshop. Please, someone.

It was a joint training workshop with our EMAs around the region. And you’re not dying to know, you’re a pathetic bigot

Debaliviere91 wrote: ↑

May 21, 2025

Auggie wrote:The only thing unclear is literally everything Spencer says about what happened.

That’s why she took a couple days to sort through what actually happened. It’s hard to track what happened when the protocol is unclear.

If this were true, every single answer would have been "we are not prepared to answer at this time" but unfortunately that wasn't every answer, instead she made terrible and ambiguous statements to the facts without actually knowing what happened. That's why we are even discussing this.

“Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”

― Isaac Newton   

An audit was delivered to CEMA in March of 2024. The deficiencies in clear policy were identified and considered high risk. Budget was allocated to automate but delayed by BPS (shocker). Automation wasn’t required to fix the policy deficiencies.

I think someone posted it earlier, but why not allow the county to control the city tornado sirens. Since the city is so small, almost every single tornado watch and warning will also apply to the city. Just hook them up to one system. Would require some money to be spent, but it could be tied together as part of a broader modernization effort.

For the rebuilding, will the cultural resources office allow for property owners to make immediate repairs to their properties even if the repairs don’t meet historic district standards? Priority should be given to building stabilization and allowing owners/occupants to move back into a safe property as soon as possible.

Depending on any money awarded from the State and Feds (which, who knows honestly. Could be good special session stuff in Missouri), I think the money should be spent stabilizing and fixing previously occupied homes and buildings. Depending on what’s left over, modernize infrastructure, then use remaining money to incentivize new homes that are attainable to a wider range of people. Use this disaster as a moment to build back a stronger neighborhood. Thanks to social media, I’ve been seeing numerous posts applauding the community for coming together in this time. It proves that community matters. Might as well build on that in a lasting and positive way by redirecting some money to build, and fix, homes that can be bought by those who aren’t wealthy but want to own a home.

I know it is way too early, but I would be curious to know how many of the 5K buildings damaged or destroyed were already vacant....And how many of those buildings are north of Delmar.

My extremely rough estimate would be 85-90% of the buildings damaged were north of Delmar. Also I'm not sure how the dollars would work out but if somehow this rebuilding effort could involve Gateway South/modular housing that'd be a nice shot in the arm in the next 5-10 years

I hate that no one is asking the really important questions. For example, what’s the impact on the Loop Trolley season?