St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer said she would support merging city and county emergency management agencies during a press conference on Thursday.
She said she posed that question last week to regional leadership during an East-West Gateway Council of Governments meeting. Spencer said bringing together local entities would enable the region to "better utilize each other's resources" when responding to natural disasters like the May 16 tornado.
"The St. Louis region needs to come together on a whole host of fronts, but emergency response is absolutely one of them," Spencer said. "We should absolutely have some of that framework in place."
Spencer and other St. Louis officials said the city is in a better position today to respond to severe weather events than it was last year when a powerful EF3 tornado struck the region during a storm that killed at least five people and severely damaged about 10,000 buildings.
"We inherited a system that was not where we wanted it to be. It was not where we needed it to be, and we're still not all the way there," Spencer said. "But over the last 321 days, we have made real, measurable progress in rebuilding it stronger, more coordinated and more resilient than ever."
St. Louis Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson and Mayor Spencer said the majority of the city's tornado sirens have been repaired — just three are out of commission. Jenkerson said the city has invested up to $3.9 million to update the system.
Jenkerson said he plans to station at least one fire department staff member at each siren during the city's monthly test next week to confirm they're working.
"Today, the system is fully automated. Most importantly, the risk of mistake is gone," Jenkerson said.
City Emergency Management Agency Commissioner Gregg Favre said his agency also is in a better position now to respond to severe weather.
However, about half of the positions on his staff are vacant.
And the agency is still operating with an outdated emergency operations plan. CEMA has been underfunded and understaffed for years, as St. Louis Public Radio reported last month.
Favre said he hopes to hire an additional staff member in the coming weeks and will designate one emergency planner to focus on updating the city's emergency operations plan this year.
"We have critical positions that need to be filled. We have important plans to update and we have key capabilities to build as we meet what the national standard is," Favre said. "This work will continue, but I stand here knowing that the system is markedly and measurably better today than we were a year ago, and that we will continue to work every single day to make it better."
Copyright 2026 St. Louis Public Radio