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That was the message I posted on social media on Friday afternoon as a series of storms passed through the St. Louis region. It’s a thing we do during weather events. My son’s girlfriend had just sent him a video from St. Charles County of large hail pounding her parents’ house. I was scrolling through various media platforms to see how the storm was hitting different parts of town.

We had sirens, signaling a possible tornado, but all was relatively calm where we live, in Wildwood, as we prepared to head out of state for our granddaughter’s high school graduation. The storm passed. We got in the van and headed west. It wasn’t until two hours later, when we took a break, that I checked my phone. The first picture that popped up was a friend’s house in the city of St. Louis. The roof was gone, with red bricks collapsed on side walls. Thankfully, my friend and his wife were fine.

But that wasn’t the case for five souls in the city who lost their lives in the tornado. In Kentucky, the carnage was even worse, with 19 lives lost.

In St. Louis, there were no sirens.

A “human� error or “protocol� error meant somebody didn’t push the button so people got the additional warning that tornado sirens offer. Maybe it would have saved lives. Maybe not. Either way, it had Cara Spencer standing in front of television cameras on Monday, barely a month into her tenure as mayor, uttering words no government executive wants to have come out of their mouth.

“Let me first and foremost say these concerns are valid, they’re real and I share them,� Spencer said.

She’s made a change in how sirens are deployed in the future and, she added, “The buck stops with me.�

In the hours and days after the storm, Spencer has been omnipresent in neighborhoods, with first responders and in the media, updating residents and taking responsibility. It reminded me of Gov. Jay Nixon during the Joplin tornado in 2011. That tornado, one of the worst in the nation’s history, killed 161 people. Its scope was almost unfathomable.

The comparison is important, though, in terms of what came next. In 2011, like this year, there had already been a series of dangerous spring storms in the state. Nixon sought, and received, a national disaster declaration from the White House almost immediately, freeing up funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to aid in recovery.

Will that happen in St. Louis this year? As I write this, FEMA officials are scheduled to make their first visit to the city Wednesday to examine the damage. And while Spencer, Gov. Mike Kehoe and U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley have issued calls for FEMA aid to be forthcoming, it’s unclear how quickly it will flow, if at all.

President Donald Trump is seeking to dismantle the agency that has been a lifesaver in the wake of tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and other disasters. FEMA over the years has helped rebuild cities, counties and states that didn’t have the money to cover the carnage.

Already this year, FEMA has denied aid for some counties after disasters in and . It initially denied aid after deadly March tornadoes in Arkansas, and only recently reversed itself. In March, 18 tornadoes caused untold devastation in Mississippi, and that state is still waiting for an answer from the White House on a request for a disaster declaration.

Trump’s choice to run FEMA, Cameron Hamilton, lost his position after he publicly disagreed with Trump’s plans to dismantle the agency. The president replaced him with David Richardson, the new acting administrator who will likely decide if St. Louis gets the help it needs.

“I will achieve the president’s intent,� Richardson told his staff when he took over, reported.

That means St. Louis and Missouri, still reeling from storms earlier this spring, could be on their own, at least for a while. The state has long maintained a “rainy day� fund but has been hesitant to use it. St. Louis is sitting on millions of dollars from the Rams lawsuit settlement but hasn’t decided how to spend it. Even so, both of those funds won’t put a dent in a damage bill already estimated at more than $1 billion.

“Our city cannot shoulder this alone,� Spencer told MSNBC this week. “The state of Missouri cannot shoulder this alone.�

But there’s a new reality in America: It’s unclear if the federal government will answer the call when places like St. Louis need help.

That’s the siren blaring across the country, from wildfires in the West, to tornado alley, to the hurricane-and-flood-ravaged East Coast. Is anyone in the federal government listening?