ST. LOUIS - The City of St. Louis has fired its emergency management commissioner following the release of an external investigation into the city’s response to the May 16 tornado. Sarah Russell had been on paid administrative leave since May 20.

The investigative report, prepared by the law firm Carmody MacDonald, was released Monday. It found “multiple cascading failures at almost every level leading up to and even after the storm," and was highly critical of CEMA and Commissioner Russell.

According to the report, Russell was not in the CEMA office when the tornado touched down. She and other members of CEMA staff were attending a workshop at another downtown St. Louis location, which left them unable to activate the sirens from the office. In addition, a communications breakdown resulted in no one activating the sirens, so the sirens failed to sound. Even if the sirens had been activated, the report noted many residents would not have heard them.

The investigation found the design and orientation of the city’s siren equipment made it unnecessarily difficult—if not impossible—to fully activate the siren system during the storm. Ineffective testing protocols prevented city officials from learning about these deficiencies in advance of the storm, the report said.

During a news conference on Tuesday, Mayor Cara Spencer said there would be clarity on the future of CEMA operations in the coming days.

“We knew there were issues. We knew there were failures. That's why I called for this external investigation to be conducted,” Spencer said.

When discussing the findings of the report, the mayor mainly let the report do the talking, adding that Russell's lack of clarity in the immediate aftermath of the storm was concerning.

“I do believe that person should know emphatically whether the sirens had gone off," Spencer said. "Understanding that that answer wasn’t clear, was a problem.”

Spencer wouldn’t comment on Russell’s employment status during the news conference.

“Commissioner Russell is a person that you know, I believe, served with good intention. And you know, I think this has been a hard, hard road for their colleagues and CEMA, and for many members of the community who have worked with Commissioner Russell in the past," the mayor said. "And I am not here to say anything other than what's in the report has merit, you know, and you know we're moving forward.”

FOX 2 News learned Russell was notified of her firing less than two hours after the mayor's news conference. Russell appeared before a disciplinary hearing on Monday. At the conclusion of the hearing, the city’s public safety director had 14 days to determine Russell's fate.

In a Facebook post late last week, Russell seemed to see the writing on the wall.

"My experiences tell me that it doesn't matter what I say, it hasn't mattered since the tornado hit, and it didn't matter before that," Russell wrote. "It hasn't mattered what I said in meetings, it hasn't mattered what I said in budget hearings, or any other place I have spoken with this leadership.”

Russell had served as St. Louis CEMA Commissioner since 2022.

City officials are not commenting on Russell’s firing. FOX 2 has reached out to Russell for comment and have not received a response. Earlier this week, Russell told FOX 2 they’d discuss the situation when they could. We should note investigators said, “It is clear that CEMA was understaffed, underfunded and under resourced.” However, they don’t believe the failures were directly attributable to those issues.

Spencer said she stands absolutely committed to making sure the city has a more robust emergency management department moving forward and promised the sirens will go off the next time they’re needed.