One year later

A year after a devastating tornado tore through the St. Louis region and into parts of Southern Illinois, blue tarps still cling to rooftops across parts of North St. Louis. Vacant buildings remain partially collapsed. Families continue navigating insurance claims, housing instability and emotional trauma from a storm that exposed not only the region’s vulnerability to extreme weather, but also longstanding inequities that left some neighborhoods struggling to recover long after the winds stopped.

For survivors like DeMarco Davidson and Sherrill Jackson, the memories remain immediate.

“This memory stays with me every day,” said Davidson, executive director of Metropolitan Congregations United.

Davidson and Jackson were inside Centennial Christian Church in the Fountain Park neighborhood on May 16, 2025, when the tornado struck with winds reaching 152 mph. Alongside them was Patricia Ann Penelton, a longtime church member who was killed when the storm caused the historic church to collapse.

Earlier that day, Davidson, Jackson and Penelton had remained at Centennial after serving the community. Davidson said the church’s stained-glass windows made it difficult to see the full severity of the storm outside, though he noticed the sky darkening and the lights beginning to flicker.

“The lights went out and I started to hear the tink tink noise of the hail,” Davidson recalled.

Moments later, the church shook violently. The roof collapsed, trapping Davidson and Jackson beneath the rubble for roughly 90 minutes while Davidson repeatedly tried calling 911.

“I just kept saying, ‘Keep praying, keep praying,’” he said.

Nearly a year later, Centennial Christian Church, a more than 120-year-old Fountain Park landmark, has been demolished because of structural damage caused by the tornado. Despite losing their historic home, church leaders say they still plan to rebuild. 

As St. Louis marks the first anniversary of the storm, residents, healthcare workers and community leaders say the tornado revealed how climate change, aging infrastructure and decades of disinvestment collided in North St. Louis neighborhoods already facing economic hardship and housing instability.

The nearly mile-wide tornado remained on the ground for roughly 27 minutes, carving a path of destruction through North St. Louis neighborhoods before continuing east into Illinois. Thousands of homes, churches and businesses were damaged or destroyed.

The tornado caused an estimated $1.6 billion in damage and was one of 23 billion-dollar weather disasters nationwide in 2025, according to Climate Central. Missouri recorded a preliminary 120 tornadoes that year, potentially the highest number in state history. Scientists say climate change is contributing to more extreme weather across the Midwest, raising new concerns about how prepared cities like St. Louis are for increasingly destructive storms.

Mayor Cara Spencer acknowledged that the city was not fully prepared for a disaster of the tornado’s magnitude, particularly in neighborhoods that had already endured decades of disinvestment and deteriorating infrastructure.

“We fell short in a lot of ways,” Spencer said. “Not the fault of any one mayor or elected official. This spans a long time.”

As government systems slowly mobilized, community organizations including the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, Metropolitan Congregations United, Action St. Louis, 4theVille, Invest STL and Dream Builders for Equity stepped in to distribute food, coordinate volunteers and help stabilize damaged homes.

Since the tornado, the city has reorganized portions of its emergency management operations and expanded severe-weather preparedness efforts following reviews of the storm response.

Spencer said recovery remains ongoing and heavily dependent on partnerships among nonprofits, residents and government agencies.

“We have many things to be proud of, but equally important, we have much work ahead,” Spencer said. “It is only through partnership that we are going to be able to continue to put one foot in front of the other — to continue the work to make North St. Louis whole, to make North St. Louis healthy, to make North St. Louis thrive.”

She said the scale of the devastation continues to exceed available resources.

“We have a $2 billion hole that was carved through our community,” Spencer said, referring to the broader rebuilding challenge facing North St. Louis. “That doesn’t mean we are going to give up. The work is underway, and the work is ongoing.”

Recovery has been especially difficult in many North St. Louis neighborhoods because large numbers of residents lacked insurance coverage before the storm. According to the Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance, 73% of homeowners in some of the hardest-hit areas were uninsured, leaving many families dependent on federal aid, nonprofits and personal savings to rebuild.

For many residents, the storm’s aftermath exposed major gaps in recovery systems.

Davidson said many survivors struggled almost immediately with online aid applications, limited internet access and confusion surrounding city, state and federal assistance programs.

“We saw a massive amount of the digital divide,” he said.

Some residents, he said, simply stopped applying for help.

“Some people just gave up hope, especially during the winter months,” Davidson said.

A July 2025 Crisis Cleanup Coalition report found that 64% of assessed storm damage remained unresolved weeks after the tornado, with more than 1,200 properties still showing open damage cases.

Cristina Garmendia, policy director to Board of Aldermen President Meghan Green, said the report revealed how difficult long-term recovery would become.

“At that point in time we didn’t have the full picture of the damage that was done,” Garmendia said. “The takeaway from the report showed the city had much more work that needed to be done and that it was going to get worse with time.”

For residents like Rochel Starling, recovery has unfolded one room at a time.

When the tornado struck, Starling was out of town on a women’s retreat. By the time she returned, her home was severely damaged.

“My chimney had fallen, splitting my den in half,” she said. “My roof was gone, two trees were uprooted, every ceiling on the second floor except one had fallen in.”

Without insurance, Starling pieced together financial assistance from FEMA, Veterans Affairs, family support and withdrawals from her retirement savings to continue rebuilding.

“It’s going to be a long-term recovery,” she said.

Dr. LJ Punch, founder of 314 Oasis, said the tornado intensified challenges many residents were already facing before the storm.

“The storm itself made things like housing, transportation, communication and physical stability much worse for many people,” Punch said.

Punch said the storm created layers of trauma that continue affecting residents long after debris removal and emergency response efforts faded from public attention.

For Mohammed Abba-Aji, a postdoctoral research associate at Washington University in St. Louis School of Public Health, the tornado reflects broader national patterns tied to climate disasters and inequity.

“Disasters do not create inequity,” Abba-Aji said. “They expose it and accelerate it.”

One year later, survivors are still rebuilding homes, routines and emotional stability. But community leaders say true recovery will require more than repairing damaged buildings. It will require addressing the inequities, infrastructure failures and preparedness gaps the tornado exposed long before the storm arrived.

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