STLPR0%
St. Louis emergency management head says agency is making slow but steady progress 89%
By Rachel Lippmann0%
5/12/2026, 10:27:54 PM
Topics: Emergency Management, St Louis Tornado
BS Summary: This article contains 25 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Self-Serving Bias, and Negativity Bias, with Optimism Bias as the most egregious example at 37.8% saturation with 184 hits. Analysis detected 1,033 faulty-reasoning hits from 487 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 82.5% and a BS Rank of 89% (2,326 of 21,197 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 89.00% of the article peer group.
The head of St.
Louis’ disaster preparedness agency said the city is making progress when it comes to being prepared for any kind of disaster.
“The situation at CEMA is not something that happened overnight, and we're not going to fix it overnight, but I do want all of you to know that we are fixing it,” City Emergency Management Agency Commissioner Gregg Favre told members of the Board of Aldermen's budget committee on Tuesday.
“This will not be solved by the time I appear here next year, but we will be significantly better.”
The agency came under intense scrutiny after the May 16 tornado, when the outdoor warning sirens failed to sound.
An external review by St.
Louis law firm Carmody MacDonald found “multiple cascading failures” and documented a lack of policies in the agency, including an emergency operations plan that was last updated in 2003.
Then-Commissioner Sarah Russell was placed on leave in May and later fired.
Favre was hired about four months ago.
“I have found that the majority of the Carmody findings are both accurate and in many cases understated the problem,” he said.
Favre said much of the heavy lifting, including updated emergency operations and logistics plans, will have to wait until new staff with experience in those areas join the department in the coming weeks.
But he said that over the past four months, he and his two employees have written policies for the office, established partnerships with the National Weather Service and drafted the first formal policy for interdepartmental cooperation to respond to winter storms.
Those steps, he said, “represent significant progress in a long-overdue investment in our city’s readiness posture.”
The agency still has only three full-time employees, but Favre said four experienced people are coming on board soon, and CEMA’s budget for fiscal 2027 includes funds for an eighth full-time employee.
While he can work with a staff of that size, Favre said he hoped to eventually get the agency to 11 full-time employees.
That, he said, is the minimum needed for a city the size of St.
Louis with complex emergency management needs like “homeland security threats, flooding, earthquakes, tornadoes, the built environment that we have as an older city.”
Aldermen on the budget committee were complimentary of the work that Favre had already done during his short time as commissioner.
“It seems like you’re getting really surgical,” said committee Chair Rasheen Aldridge, alderman of the 14th Ward.
“You know how to work with this department to move it forward.”
Fifth Ward Alderman Matt Devoti agreed.
He also applauded Favre for helping him understand exactly the role that an emergency management agency plays in disaster response.
“Certainly when I heard this presentation last year, that wasn't what was conveyed to me,” he said.
“It’s extremely enlightening on what this agency can be going forward.”
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