Tornado recovery in St. Louis is a mess. The city blames Trump's FEMA changes
Consider This from NPR
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🗓️ 16 November 2025
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
Residents and local officials say the Trump administration's new policy on federal disaster assistance has meant they have been left to do the work traditionally done by FEMA.
Editor's note: After this story aired, the Federal Emergency Management Agency responded to NPR's request for comment. In a statement, FEMA said that it has not implemented any new policies or "experiments" related to its programs that provide aid to individuals and local governments. It also said that “the administration cares deeply about the people of Missouri” and is fully committed to supporting Missouri and St. Louis leadership as they navigate recovery from the tornado. "Federal, state and local partners are fully aligned" to assist survivors, the statement said.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's been six months since a tornado ripped through a densely populated part of St. Louis last May. |
| 0:05.8 | More than two dozen are dead across Kentucky, Missouri, and Virginia after a storm sent tornadoes through these states over the week. |
| 0:13.6 | St. Louis Mayor, Kara Spencer, called the devastation, quote, truly tremendous and said an estimated 5,000 buildings were impacted. |
| 0:21.2 | The storm was nearly a mile wide and stayed on the ground for about 27 minutes. |
| 0:26.7 | By the time it was over, it had killed at least four people in St. Louis. |
| 0:30.4 | It injured dozens more. |
| 0:32.2 | It also left more than a billion dollars of destruction. |
| 0:35.7 | That includes more than 5,000 damaged and destroyed buildings |
| 0:38.7 | from homes to local businesses. One of the thousands of people living in the path of the tornado |
| 0:43.5 | was Larry Powell. I heard debris hid in the house and, you know, I recognize, you know, |
| 0:51.0 | tornado activity. And I jumped in the bathroom across the hall, which put three walls |
| 0:57.0 | between me and the tornado. I knew that if I had not jumped in that bathroom, I'd have been |
| 1:02.9 | Swiss cheese. President Trump declared the tornado a major disaster a month later. That opened up |
| 1:10.5 | critical federal assistance, |
| 1:11.6 | and it also created an important test case for the Trump administration's new push for states, |
| 1:16.6 | not FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to manage the response to disasters. |
| 1:22.6 | The mayor of St. Louis, Kara Spencer, says the city didn't yet have the infrastructure in place to respond adequately. |
| 1:29.9 | I have been frustrated. We have all been frustrated and disappointed with FEMA's failure to drive the response, |
| 1:37.8 | providing housing, providing food, the logistical nightmare that was immediately apparent in the hours, |
| 1:45.0 | certainly days and weeks following the tornado that we were building as we went. |
| 1:50.0 | Consider this. The president says he wants a local, not federal, |
| 1:54.0 | approach to managing emergencies, but having to fill FEMA's shoes so quickly |
... |
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