How neighbors crossed the Delmar Divide to rebuild after the tornado and found hope in each other 44%
By Hiba Ahmad0%
5/13/2026, 10:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 33 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Optimism Bias, and In-Group Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 13.7% saturation with 211 hits. Analysis detected 2,026 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,535 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 47.6% and a BS Rank of 44% (11,450 of 20,382 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 56.20% of the article peer group.
Larry Powell is known to take daily walks around his Academy neighborhood.
His routine consists of strolling along blocks of generational homes of longtime residents.
Many of the original homeowners have bought second and third properties for their children.
He knows many of them by name.
Powell, who is a Marine Corps veteran, has done the same.
He owns two properties and an empty plot on Kensington Avenue.
“I intended to stay there until I went to the great Marine Corps boot camp in the sky,” Powell said.
Much like he’s always done, Powell took a walk in the early weeks after the May 16 tornado, which killed at least four people, injured about 30 and left $1.6 billion in damages.
He met Carroll Lehnhoff-Bell, who lives two streets south of Delmar Boulevard and had come over to the Academy to help clean up.
Delmar Boulevard is an iconic street in St.
Louis.
It represents a line of demarcation known as the Delmar Divide — splitting the city along the lines of race, income and quality of life.
North of Delmar, an area that was once a thriving epicenter of Black life, has faced years of segregation, redlining, racial covenants and depopulation.
The area south of Delmar has seen steady economic growth and is more racially diverse, according to the U.S.
Census.
The powerful tornado ignored the city’s historic divide and ripped through both Powell and Lehnhoff-Bell’s neighborhoods, leaving a path of devastation in its wake.
“I grew up in a multigenerational household in University City, and my grandpa would take his morning walks,” Lehnhoff-Bell said.
“When I saw Larry, I saw my grandpa.
So, I stopped him, said hello and heard his story of love for this community.”
Lehnhoff-Bell, who works in the Clayton School District, showed up to the Academy neighborhood after seeing social media posts from Ali Rand.
She’s a Central West End resident whose home was also damaged by the storm.
Sitting in a paved lot on Enright Avenue where the volunteers have gathered nearly every weekend for a year, Rand said this all started when she and Wes Klaus, a brick mason from Lake St.
Louis, walked over to the Academy neighborhood.
They were stunned by the magnitude of damage in a neighborhood she shared a ZIP code with.
“That day, we pulled into this [parking] lot.
We didn't know anybody and we just dispersed.
We didn't start a formal paperwork process.
We just got out there and did [the work] because there was nothing else to do but act,” Rand said.
That work hasn’t stopped.
Nearly a year after the May 16 tornado, the group of volunteers on Enright continues to show up nearly every weekend to lead cleanup efforts.
The group has had hundreds of volunteers join recovery events and has raised more than $1 million in donations.
Lehnhoff-Bell said they are currently supporting 35 to 40 families in the Academy neighborhood while also rebuilding their own homes.
They’re now working with Catholic Charities as a financial partner, which has helped the group manage monetary tax-deductible donations.
The nonprofit also provides case management for some families.
STLPR spent the past year documenting the group’s grassroots efforts to rebuild and restore homes in the Academy neighborhood.
Ali Rand said the group has successfully helped one resident move back in after being displaced, and two more will move back soon.
Kensington Avenue resident Larry Powell is hoping to be back home in June, and Monet Beatty, who lives on Enright, is scheduled to be back in her home by the end of May.
Both of their homes sustained extensive damage.
Powell describes himself as an “eternal optimist.”
He’s been living in an apartment in the Central West End and regularly visits his properties to keep a close eye.
He said people have broken into his and his neighbors’ homes to strip them of bricks and copper pipes or wiring.
“I have to maintain a positive attitude,” Powell said.
“I’ve been out of my home for a year, and everything is moving so slow — at a glacial pace.
The city has dropped the ball.”
Beatty and her family have been staying with her mother in Jennings since the storm knocked down the back wall and roof of her home.
She said the anniversary of the storm felt bittersweet because her family finally gets to move back home, but her neighborhood didn’t feel the same.
“It almost brings tears to my eyes to drive home because you see so much loss and you know those people, they're not coming back,” Beatty said.
“When I walk out my back door, it still looks like May 16.”
Beatty said that most renters have left and that two homes have been demolished.
Some residents are still waiting for the city to demolish the rest of the homes with extensive damage.
A home at 5208 Enright Ave. has a demolition sign from the St.
Louis Recovery Office with a date of Dec.
20, 2025.
A resident living next to the old white house told STLPR that the city is set to finally take it down this month.
Rand initially believed the volunteer work would maybe last for a few weeks during the summer and eventually the city, state or the Federal Emergency Management Agency would take over.
That didn’t happen.
“I kept thinking people would come, so I would just be out here until people came,” Rand said.
“Then the only people that came were more volunteers, but no one from the government.
So how do you walk away?”
Mayor Cara Spencer has blamed FEMA for changing its reimbursement protocols, which she said has delayed the recovery process.
Julian Nicks, the city’s chief recovery and neighborhood transformation officer, has said the city needs to build the basic infrastructure to respond to a storm of this magnitude.
But new reporting from STLPR found the Spencer administration’s decision to stand up the STL Recovery Office and ignore preexisting city programs designed to support residents slowed recovery for tornado-impacted residents.
In the meantime, grassroots volunteer operations like the one organized by Rand and organizations like Action St.
Louis and 314 Oasis have stepped in to fill the gap.
“I have been incredibly disappointed with that feeling of standing out here day after day after day,” Rand said.
“I remember the day that the city garbage truck came, and I was like ‘What a victory!’
But that's just basic human services, right?
Like, why am I celebrating?
I've had to learn to celebrate that, but in reality people just deserve to have their trash cleaned up.”
Rand, Lehnhoff-Bell and the other volunteers have attended the Board of Aldermen’s Budget and Public Employees Committee meetings, which have become a space for residents to express their frustration toward the city’s tornado response.
They’ve also voiced their concerns and confusion over new city programs to Nicks and other staff in the STL Recovery Office.
The group did get some help from the city, including a couple of handwashing stations and a porta-potty, but dumpsters and other rebuilding supplies have been either donated or purchased with private funds.
When asked if the group is still waiting on city officials to show up and do the work, Powell and Beatty said no.
“I'm moving forward because there are so many promises that are made and broken, and the average person, that would break their spirit,” Powell said.
“I kind of threw in the towel a long time ago,” Beatty said.
“There were so many promises and nothing happened.
I gave up probably six to seven months ago.”
Although the Delmar Divide keeps many residents south of it from crossing north, Rand and Lehnhoff-Bell said that didn’t stop them from showing up for their new friends in Academy.
They have a simple mantra: “neighbors helping neighbors,” Lehnhoff-Bell said.
“I’ve learned that St.
Louis is filled with a lot of people with good hearts.
I was mildly shocked to see how the community came out at the behest of these two women here,” Powell said, pointing to Rand and Lehnhoff-Bell.
“It makes me really proud to live in St.
Louis.”
Brick mason Wes Klaus said he also felt a sense of pride in watching volunteers take a real interest in rebuilding each home.
He’s taught the crew of volunteers how to clean and restore bricks so they can be placed back on homes.
“I feel like everybody who has had a hand in cleaning a brick or doing something has a hand in what’s being rebuilt,” Klaus said.
Although Rand said she is grateful that the storm brought her together with her neighbors, she doesn’t believe the brunt of rebuilding should fall to impacted residents.
Still, she’s not giving up until families are back in their homes.
“I think I’ve really learned that if I love something, I’m going to fight for it,” Rand said.
“I love this city.
So why not fight?”
The volunteers plan to hold a cleanup day on the anniversary of the May 16 tornado from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at 5228 Enright Ave.
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