Photos: St. Louis cleans up after powerful tornado

St. Louis residents are beginning to recover after an EF3 tornado tore through central and northern parts of the city, damaging thousands of homes and killing five people.

Shirley Everett, 88, was sitting just inside the front window of her home on Red Bud Avenue in north St. Louis when the sky suddenly turned dark.

“I heard a real loud wind, a loud noise, and then the windows started shaking and rattling,” she said. “I knew there was a disaster going on.”

Dozens of volunteers from across the city gathered in north St. Louis — especially along Red Bud Avenue — to help clear bricks, tree limbs and shattered glass.

Jes Star, 32, from Tower Grove East, said the historic significance of north city and the devastation compelled her to help however she could.

“I woke up this morning and was like, ‘That was incredibly close to where I live,'” she said, adding it was lucky her neighborhood was spared. “It is not luck that this part of the city will not receive as much support and services than other parts.”

Rasheen Aldridge, alderman for the 14th Ward, echoed those concerns as he joined cleanup efforts in the neighborhood alongside other elected officials.

“It literally had looked like a bomb had just went off. Blocks and blocks of homes that are just gone,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking. … The rebuild is not going to happen overnight.”

For Everett, seeing neighbors and strangers come together to help her community has made the world’s difference to her.

“It’s so sweet that people care about each other,” she said, holding back tears as she watched volunteers work. “We need to get together more because north St. Louis has been neglected so long.”

See photos of the cleanup efforts by St. Louis Public Radio visuals editor Brian Munoz and Woodscreek’s Kyle Pyatt below: