A reflection on the EF-3 tornado that hit St. Louis on Friday.
Last Friday, an EF-3 tornado struck the city of St. Louis, where I live, and tornados struck other parts of the central US, including Kentucky and Wisconsin. The Missouri storm, which was the strongest to hit St. Louis since 2011, cut through the city at 55 mph, with winds up to 152 mph, destroying thousands of homes, injuring 38 people, and killing five. As of last Sunday, 23,000 homes and business were without power.
The heart of these events is always in the stories of the people who are most affected—stories of loss of loved ones, of homes destroyed, of the challenge of coping, as a community, in the near- and long-term. And, in particular, such stories are, here in St. Louis today, and always after such events, more acute in already economically precarious neighborhoods, including, today, neighborhoods like Fountain Park and the Greater Ville that have long faced a range of challenges before the storm struck, now made worse by the moment.
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