As a community organizer and storyteller with public platforms, I believe my responsibility is not just to sound the alarm of looming catastrophes (political or natural), but to arm my community with information and strategies for survival and transformative changes. I’ve been obsessed with what the tornado brought to St. Louis.

The number of town halls on tornado recovery and the lack of substantive answers seem to be only adding to the trauma and frustration for victims. For the people still living in tents in their front yards or hassling with insurance companies, relief is not coming fast enough.

For those of us not directly burdened with tornado relief for our families, we have to be relentless advocates for — in Dr. Punch’s words — a communal response to the tornado. This means fighting for a long-term, integrated approach that addresses the persistent economic inequalities and racial disparities that plague our most vulnerable communities.

We must resist the approach to react to the saddest plight or the most vocal survivor. Given the piecemeal recovery efforts that are unfolding, there will be two rebuilt houses on a city block in isolation from a beloved community and the critical resources that come with it.

It has been over 90 days since the tornado hit us with a vengeance. There is still no convening of political, civic, social and medical minds to develop a comprehensive plan. There remains no unified office to provide tornado victims with information and resources. Instead, responses are reactive and fragmented, undermining effective support.

As the nation focuses on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, most coverage [was] the sanitized version that highlights a gentrified New Orleans and ignores the Mississippi Gulf towns. I doubt if accounts will show that with the displacement of thousands of African Americans, the Crescent City is now predominantly white.

Coverage will not boast of a school district that fired all 8,000 public school staffers after the hurricane in favor of charter schools and what this has meant for remaining neighborhoods and for the students of families who were permanently displaced. What is the backstory about residents who were violently separated from their familial and cultural roots, who lost homes, schools, businesses, and their places of worship?

St. Louis has a unique opportunity to embrace a communal response, which means building the infrastructure necessary for healthy and protected communities. We have a wealth of experience from other natural and man-made disasters to inform a successful and healthy recovery. To ignore them is at our own peril.