From the eye of the storm

When a tornado with winds reaching 152 mph tore through North St. Louis on May 16, 2025, Steven Simmons thought he was watching an ordinary spring storm gather over Fountain Park. Then he and his wife, Terran, felt their house shift beneath them.

“We just felt our house lean back and stand back up,” Simmons said.

Moments later, the next gust ripped away the roof. His wife watched it sway before disappearing entirely. The structure next door collapsed. The front door blew open. The couple crawled toward the bathroom.

“We could feel the wind trying to suck us out of the house,” Simmons said.

They reached the bathroom just before the entire right side of the home blew out.

“It still didn’t hit us that this was a tornado,” Simmons said. “I thought it was the rapture.”

Grass, leaves and debris swirled around them as the storm produced what Simmons described as the sound of “a train on top of you.”

When the winds stopped, the couple stepped outside and saw straight through the side of their home into open air. Trees across Fountain Park had been flattened. Neighbors emerged in shock, checking on one another.

Simmons still had to reach his 10-year-old son, Terrance, at school in the Central West End. What normally took two minutes by car became a two-hour maze through blocked streets and destruction.

“He left that morning and his house was normal,” Simmons said. “And now it’s gone.”

The Simmons family’s Fountain Park neighborhood in Ward 12 was among the hardest-hit areas of the city, where thousands of properties were damaged and many residents faced prolonged delays involving roof repairs, debris removal and insurance claims.

The tornado destroyed the structure. The days that followed ruined nearly everything else. Because the roof was gone and no tarp arrived, rainwater poured into the home for days.

“We had maybe four to five days of nonstop rain pouring down inside the home,” Simmons said.

Residents across North St. Louis described similar problems after the tornado, saying delays in roof tarping and stabilization allowed rainwater, mold and additional structural damage to spread through homes that initially appeared salvageable.

The Simmonses salvaged what they could carry — mostly clothes and small personal items. Beds, appliances, electronics and furniture remained behind as the house deteriorated.

Mold spread quickly. Ceilings collapsed. Rodents moved in. The smell of rotting food seeped through the home.

His son’s bedroom — the one room that stayed intact the longest — eventually gave way too. His wife stopped returning to the house. Their son struggled emotionally each time he saw it.

And yet because they had insurance and family willing to take them in, the Simmonses consider themselves among the lucky ones. The temporary living arrangement stretched beyond 10 months. While the family stayed in North County, thieves repeatedly targeted the damaged home.

“They were able to drive up into my yard, load up the AC units and leave,” Simmons said after two air-conditioning units were stolen.

Bricks disappeared from the property piece by piece. Someone tore off the front door trying to break inside. Even the electrical meter box was stripped for metal. To protect what remained, Simmons spent nights sleeping inside the gutted home without power, walls or flooring.

“I did that just to let anybody know there’s a presence at this house,” he said.

Simmons is a private chef whose business, The Urban Dining Room at Fountain Park, operated from the first floor of the home. He hosted sold-out five-course brunches and dinners nearly every weekend.

The afternoon the tornado struck, he had been tasting oxtails for a Caribbean-themed dinner planned for the next evening.

He remained out of business for nearly a year.

“My bread-and-butter wasn’t running for 11 months,” Simmons said.

Customers refused refunds and instead bought donation tickets to help support the business. Simmons said distributors donated supplies and GoDaddy waived service fees so he could receive the full proceeds.

The rebuild became long, expensive and emotionally draining.

Insurance claims moved slowly. Contractors were stretched across multiple tornado-damaged homes at once. Meanwhile, the family’s homeowner’s insurance payment jumped from less than $200 a month to nearly $900 after the claim was processed.

Simmons’ experience reflected broader frustrations across the tornado zone. The Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance says roughly 19,500 insurance claims were filed after the storm, while many homeowners continued disputing payouts they believed fell short of actual repair costs. The agency also reported that 73% of homeowners in some of the hardest-hit North St. Louis neighborhoods were uninsured.

People told the Simmons family they would come back “bigger and better.” Simmons never saw it that way.

“We liked our old home,” he said. “Who wanted to really go through this whole process?”

The family moved back home in April. Tornado warnings sounded again that same week.

“You see this person build your home, but you don’t trust it,” Simmons said.

His son moved carefully through the house, afraid to break anything. Every strong gust of wind still makes the family tense.

Slowly, though, parts of normal life are returning. A classmate’s family recently gave them Cardinals tickets to celebrate their first real weekend back home.

Still, reminders of the storm remain everywhere.

“I’m 46, and I’ve never had to deal with any of this in my life,” Simmons said.

His son, now 10, reacts differently to tornado sirens now.

“It’s not a joke to him,” Simmons said.

As the one-year anniversary approaches, Simmons said he hopes people outside the tornado zone remember recovery does not end when television coverage fades.

“Don’t forget the people that were affected,” he said. “Come back and reach out to us this summer … this fall … this winter.”

“We’re through it,” Simmons said. “But we’re still not over it.”

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