Residents Horrified After Discovering Sirens Remained Silent as Deadly Tornado Descended on St. Louis
Residents of St. Louis, Missouri, were horrified after learning the tornado sirens failed to sound during a deadly storm last week.
Five died and dozens were injured as the tornado touched down in St. Louis on Friday afternoon, KTVI-TV in Missouri reported Wednesday.
“The failure to activate the siren during a tornado has rightfully angered St. Louisans, including myself,” St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer remarked, according to St. Louis Public Radio. “While my first priority on this issue was to make sure this can never happen again, our community deserves full transparency and accountability.”
Spencer placed City Emergency Management Agency Director Sarah Russell on paid administrative leave Tuesday.
“Let me be clear: CEMA exists to alert the community when severe weather is coming. This office failed to do that in the most horrific and deadly storm that our city has experienced in my lifetime,” Spencer said.
BREAKING: CEMA Commissioner Sarah Russell, who goes by “They/Them” pronouns, is on paid leave after she failed to activate the St. Louis tornado sirens for the deadly storm.
Five people are now dead. pic.twitter.com/SjHs64dRTc
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 22, 2025
Both the CEMA office and the fire department have access to a button that activates the city’s 60 sirens, CBS News reported.
When the National Weather Service issued the tornado alert Friday, the CEMA office was supposed to push the siren button.
But Russell and other CEMA officials were at a workshop about half a mile away from the CEMA building with the button.
Russell did contact the fire department about the sirens, but her instructions were vague.
“OK, you got the sirens?” Russell said to the fire department in a recorded phone call later released to the public.
“Yes, ma’am,” the fire department said before the call ended.
Spencer criticized Russell over her lack of specificity.
“The direction was not clear,” Spencer said at a Wednesday news conference, CBS News reported. “It’s my understanding that the button was not pushed.”
Not only that, but the fire department’s siren button didn’t even work, an investigation revealed.
This is the “they/them” CEMA commissioner who failed to activate the Tornado siren system in St. Louis.
Surprised? https://t.co/IcvNn51QfX pic.twitter.com/Yhrztp4uAp
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 22, 2025
Spencer signed an executive order Tuesday giving the fire department sole responsibility over the siren button going forward.
“With the mayor’s executive order, this lack of clarity has now been eliminated,” Spencer’s office said in a statement.
Spencer also wants to automate the system to eliminate the human error factor, according to KTVI-TV.
Friday’s tornado, an EF3 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, damaged more than 4,400 buildings and caused at least $1 billion in property damage, according to St. Louis Public Radio.
According to Storm Aware Missouri, the primary function of tornado sirens is to warn people who are outside to get indoors.
“When a siren stops sounding, it does NOT mean that the potential weather threat has passed. Across Missouri, sirens are generally sounded for about three minutes, NOT until the threat ends,” according to Storm Aware.
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