Hundred of personal injury and property damage falls and traffic accidents were reported, causing one fatality and 70 injuries. Aftermath The St. Louis F4 tornado destroyed 47 homes and buildings, caused major damage to 245 others, and inflicted minor damage to 1,633 more. This left almost 1,400 people were homeless after the storm. The tornado came so quickly and unexpectedly that emergency responders were very slow in realizing the extent of the disaster, which occurred at around 2 am CST, when most people were sleeping after a long-day of already rough weather. The Weather Bureau did not receive its first report of serious damage until 2:38 am CST, over 20 minutes after the tornado had lifted. Communications following the tornado were complicated as many utility wires were downed, so the city's Civil Defense agency was not called in until about 4 am CST. Many people were trapped under the debris from the buildings and rescuers worked throughout the night to save them. Temperatures in the region dropped to by noon the next day as well. In the days following the disaster, citizens donated $240,000 to the Red Cross. The tornado also bought about a new inquiry for tornado sirens. Despite the casualties and damages caused by the tornado, the Weather Bureau stood by their decision to not issue a tornado warning and even if one had been issued, the city's defense sirens would not have sounded because they were to be used to alert the area of air-raid strikes, not for weather warnings (this was very common during the Cold War era). It was not until another deadly outbreak in 1967 produced another F4 tornado that killed three in the same general area that tornado sirens were finally installed. The F3 tornado in Southern Highland County, Ohio injured and killed multiple farm animals and downed over 100 power lines in Sugar Tree Ridge alone. In Belfast, the Belfast School was damaged so severely that school officials dismissed all of the classes immediately. The school also sustained extensive roof damage, and with more bad weather forecasted to hit the area in the days following the disaster, emergency workers worked late into the night that Tuesday to make hurried repairs on the buildings. See also List of North American tornadoes and tornado outbreaks List of tornadoes striking downtown areas St. Louis tornado history Tornado outbreak sequence of May 1896 1896 St. Louis–East