It’s like Los Angeles Fire Department Assistant Chief Kristine Larson all over again.
You may remember Larson as the face of how wokeness, among many other things, crippled Southern California’s ability to respond to the cataclysmic wildfires that swept through Los Angeles and its suburbs early this year. Larson, who worked in the “Equity and Human Resources Bureau” at the LAFD and took home a salary in the mid-six figures, infamously mocked people who said women who didn’t meet the same physical requirements as men might be a danger as firefighters.
“‘You couldn’t carry my husband out of a fire.’ Which, my response is, he got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.”
LAFD Assistant Chief Kristine Larson:
“Am I able to carry your husband out of a fire? He got himself in the wrong place.” pic.twitter.com/BofTVr6dWP
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 9, 2025
I’m not sure what Larson would have to do to not make that the one quote that we all remember about her contributions to public safety in a media-facing capacity, but I imagine even Clark Kent probably couldn’t pull it off, much less someone talking about how your husband “got himself in the wrong place” if she had to rescue him.
But Larson should cheer up, because now we have Kristine Larson 2.0: Sarah Russell, St. Louis commissioner of the City Emergency Management Agency, whose office exists, in part, “to alert the community when severe weather is coming.” Those aren’t my words, that’s the words of St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer.
Russell and her team did not due this, apparently failing to activate tornado sirens during a deadly storm last week. She’s been put on leave as an investigation is conducted into why the sirens weren’t activated.
Is it likely that Russell was a DEI hire?
And, shocker of shockers, she’s a nonbinary-identifying woman who was the only person on the St. Louis CEMA contacts page to list her pronouns — “they/them,” por supuesto — before those pronouns were scrubbed in an update. (The original still exists in archived form; apparently someone in St. Louis forgot the internet is forever.)
“Let me be clear: CEMA exists to alert the community when severe weather is coming. This office failed to do that in the most horrific and deadly storm that our city has experienced in my lifetime,” Mayor Spencer said during a news conference Wednesday, according to KTVI.
And, indeed, that’s not hard to find via CEMA documents, which KSDK-TV’s Mark Maxwell posted on social media:
This CEMA document spells out who *should have been* responsible for sounding the tornado siren. The Commissioner of CEMA needs to answer questions.
The confusing protocol Mayor Spencer alluded to: “Sirens are activated at Fire Dept… OR CEMA.”
Why didn’t either one do it? https://t.co/0SlWMn0Inq pic.twitter.com/94dBLNXsbB
— Mark Maxwell (@MarkMaxwellTV) May 20, 2025
Five people died and over 5,000 buildings were damaged during the EF-3 tornado, Fox Weather reported.
And, pray tell, why weren’t the alarms activated like they were supposed to be? Per KTVI:
The investigation looks into why the CEMA staff, including Russell, were not in the office during the anticipated storms. Instead, they were attending a workshop at another downtown location, which left them unable to activate the sirens from the office. [Emphasis ours.]
Russell contacted the fire department to activate the sirens, but unclear communication led to nobody sounding the sirens. Mayor Spencer’s office released audio of the call between Russell and a fire department dispatcher, highlighting the ambiguity in the directive to activate the sirens.
Yes, a workshop. How DEI could you possibly get? And not only that, Russell also has the Kristine Larson-worthy video clip of her trying to weasel out of the responsibility during a news briefing by hiding the fact that her team was in said workshop:
Great accountability questions from @shoshana_stahl last night. Notice how it takes three times before CEMA Commissioner Sarah Russell finally admits CEMA staffers were at a workshop when they should’ve been sounding an alarm. Russell also blames fire dept, old battered sirens. https://t.co/JvHSRqvX4A pic.twitter.com/9g7jCYBxJm
— Mark Maxwell (@MarkMaxwellTV) May 20, 2025
Another famous Missourian — and a Democrat, to boot! — used to have a sign on his desk, which said “The Buck Stops Here.”
One assumes Russell, contra Harry Truman, has a sign on hers which states, “The Buck, Assuming There Is a Buck, Due to Budget Shortages, and We Are More of a 9-to-5 Department, So Don’t Blame Us If Stuff Happens After Hours — And We Do Have Workshops to Deal With, Too, So Keep That In Mind — But That Buck, Should It So Exist, Does Not Stop With They/Them, Should It In Fact Need to Stop.”
There will be an investigation by the City of St. Louis into Russell and CEMA, of course, and one assumes that it might actually be thorough — given that five people died and the buck needs to stop somewhere. However, how can one look at her craven, gutless answers during the media briefing — combined with the need to make sure everyone knows on the city website she uses “they/them” pronouns — and not conclude that DEI somehow seeped into this hiring process?
I’m not an expert in hiring for the City Emergency Management Agency, but I’d like to think that it involves testing whether someone has what it takes to, say, manage emergencies. (Kind of in the agency name, after all.) I’d also say, based on available evidence, we can pass summary judgment on whether or not Russell lived up to her responsibilities this time around.
Maybe, during this investigation, it might be profitable to ask whether we might have had more responsible judgment at Russell’s level if a he/him or a she/her that was looked at for they/their position was hired instead. Just saying.
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