Amid the heartache and devastation after an EF3 tornado ripped through St. Louis, some people say they're lucky and grateful for neighbors who are helping them out.
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00:00So the cleanup and recovery after an EF3 tornado continues in St. Louis after setbacks last night when severe storms rumbled through the city with downpours, hail and some lightning.
00:11Now the experts at AccuWeather, we estimate that the total damage and economic loss from this multi-day severe weather outbreak is in the 9 to 11 billion dollar range.
00:21And that includes total damage and economic loss from the dozens of destructive tornadoes in the central U.S.
00:26AccuWeather's Bill Waddell is live in St. Louis. Bill, many families are dealing with no power, no air conditioning, and some don't even have a roof over their heads.
00:37Yeah, that's right. It's tough to see all of the damage block after block here in St. Louis.
00:42This city is filled with century-old brick homes. Part of the reason why, there are rich clay deposits here in this part of the country.
00:49But you can see these brick homes that have weathered over a century of storms, they were no match for the 150 mile-an-hour winds that tore through here with that EF3 tornado.
01:00The man that lives inside this home just told us a few minutes ago he was home on the first floor and thankfully he's okay.
01:05But you can see his neighbors as we do a 180 here. Every home on this street was affected.
01:10A lot of them have the blue tarps up on the roof.
01:13Some of these homes even lost the second floor.
01:17Now, there has been a staggering amount of extreme weather events here in the United States and the price tag is sky high when you look at what we've already experienced so far this year.
01:26This severe weather outbreak in the central U.S.
01:29Last month we had tornadoes and flooding.
01:32And earlier this year, of course, we had that historic winter storm along the Gulf Coast and the catastrophic wildfires that decimated some neighborhoods near Los Angeles.
01:41Now, when you combine the total damage and economic loss estimates for those four major extreme weather disasters,
01:49AccuWeather estimates that it's reached $353 billion to $393 billion.
01:57And we are still months away from the peaks of hurricane and wildfire seasons.
02:01Taking a look from up above in this community, that EF3 tornado left behind a path of destruction here on the north and west sides of St. Louis.
02:09Utility crews are out working in the heat right now to try and get the power back on.
02:14There's a lot of heartache here, especially for families who lost nearly everything and some lost loved ones.
02:20We're also finding other people feeling lucky after the storm, like Wayne Crawley.
02:24He tells us he has some injuries after his ceiling collapsed on top of him when that tornado ripped through.
02:29I feel lucky, bless the Lord, that I'm still here.
02:34Because other than that, there's a lot of people that didn't make it.
02:39People across the street, you can see their steps, their bathroom, everything is freaking crazy.
02:43And I was like, how is it that out of all these houses on the block, my house is barely untouched?
02:48Like, the most damage we got is to the little side of the building, but everybody else is missing half of their homes.
02:54Their roof's gone, everything is crazy.
02:56Yeah, this woman goes by the name of Key, and she tells us she'd usually be driving home from work around the time that this tornado hit.
03:06But for the first time, she tells us she's feeling lucky that she was asked to stay late at work that day.
03:11Otherwise, she may have ended up on the road like other drivers that were stuck.
03:16Some of them hit with debris when that storm passed.
03:19Now, St. Louis City leaders are saying there was human error before this storm.
03:23That's the reason why the tornado sirens did not sound here in the city.
03:28That is why it is so important to have multiple ways to receive severe weather warnings, like the AccuWeather app,
03:35which has proven to deliver life-saving warnings faster on average than any other source.
03:40So again, guys, really tough to see all of this damage.
03:43Thankfully, the man who calls this place home tells us he was okay, but he is upset because there's a tornado siren right down the block.
03:49It did not go off, and he tells us he was caught off guard with a storm hit.
03:54Well, Bill, we appreciate your reporting, putting that into perspective.
03:58And again, there are some old myths out there that tornadoes don't hit cities,
04:02and certainly a huge metro area took a direct hit there in St. Louis.
04:06A lot of people affected, a lot of buildings, thousands of buildings and structures damaged.
04:10So if we're going to have a search for a CIB Fair call, please keep that Whoever set off guard.
04:17Thanks.
04:18Thanks for recommendingEN,lk, and I'm glad you're so grateful.
04:21We would think we don't to answer one of our big differences.
04:23So we're going to be at a post Jazz in this section.
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