Tornado’s Arbitrary and Capricious Destruction

           

Arbitrary & Capricious. Webster’s Dictionary defines the word pairing as “unrestrained and unpredictable.”  See also, Tornado.    

Normally, a cold front’s collision with warm humid air results in beneficial rain.  When meteorologists predict too much of both coupled with dramatic drops in temperature they warn of ‘severe weather’ and possible tornados.  But weather experts remain uncertain of if, when and where a possible tornado might touch ground.   

On Friday past, ominous clouds blackened the mid-afternoon sky, a darkness that frightfully differs from nightfall’s midnight blue.  Hail haled the angry storm’s sudden arrival. Touching down in Richmond Heights/Clayton area, the twister’s whipsawing winds blew low lying dogwood trees like they were aboard the Scrambler carnival ride as the pliable trees swept hither and thither in a crazy counter clock-wise frantic.   

Like a jet during take-off, the tornado accelerated down its arbitrary northeasterly runway gaining speed and power as it went.  Horrific winds bowed stout oaks and sinewy sycamores stripping leaves and branches, dismembering limbs, and snapping treetops. 

The twister’s speed and width of destruction increased as it whipped down Wydown uprooting trees that heretofore shaded the architecturally prominent single-family homes and the bike and walking corridor leading to Forest Park.  The south end of the park lost its weaker trees, but the storm’s epicenter cut through the park’s northside decimating healthy old growth trees with a crushing vengeance leaving behind a swath of snapped limbs, split tree trunks and felled trees that exposed root wads to the light of day.  Gigantic stack after stack of massive tree trunks, limbs and branches memorialized the great loss to Forest Park’s forestry.               

Leaving behind the flora destruction, the twister’s mile wide swath blasted through poor North St. Louis lifting roofs, breaking windows, ripping off facades, and toppling whole buildings.   The meteorological menace proved stronger than the mythical wolf that could only blow down straw and wooden huts.  People’s brick homes—their hearth and refuge—went down in heaps, the famed St. Louis red brick scattered like so many Lego blocks.  Many poor families have nowhere to go.  Worse still, the twister killed five people and seriously injured many more.                 

Grievously, the City failed to sound the tornado siren despite forewarned of possible severe weather though no one foresaw the magnitude of what ultimately arrived.  In a cruel irony, the city emergency management agency (‘CEMA’) members were attending a ‘collaborative’ workshop when the terrible storm arrived.   It seems that CEMA members—who so often cried wolf with their sirens —fell prey to human frailties and failed to sound the alarm.   The tornado left psychic scars for them, too.             

St. Louisans mourn for lost trees, for our City’s gem Forest Park, for neighbors and friends whose homes were damaged or destroyed, and especially for those who forever lost  loved ones.  This horrific storm that descended upon the whole of the St. Louis area produced a tornado with an arbitrary and capricious trajectory that rampaged through a limited corridor. It could have hit anywhere.  The rest of us ‘lucky’ ones have an obligation to help the losers of nature’s reverse lottery.   

It will take a long time to dig out of this mess, starting first and foremost with donations of our time and/or money for North St. Louis residents.  And let nature spring eternal with donations to Forest Park Forever so that this beneficial organization can begin planting trees.  

This need continues long after the news cycle ends. A list of how to donate can be found by clicking on this site: https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/recovery/tornado-2025/give/index.cfm