ST. LOUIS—Forest Park bore the brute force of an EF-3 tornado on May 16, leading to eye-widening damage throughout its 1,300 acres of land. Within Forest Park, the Saint Louis Zoo sustained significant damages and had to close for two days while staff with chainsaws cleared debris.
As of Thursday, May 22, three exhibits are still closed at the Zoo as clean up continues.
Michael Macek, the Director of the Saint Louis Zoo, stated that 10,000 guests were at the zoo during the tornado.
“Every single one of them were safe,” said Macek, touting the Zoo’s Disaster Preparedness Plan. “We had about 70 people in the in the basement of the Hermitage Museum, basement of the bird House, basement of the primate house, lower level of the administration building as well as the living world, etc.”
Anytime severe weather is inbound, zookeepers are tasked with summoning the animals to safety.
“So when we know there's, like, bad weather coming in, it could also be a fire or whatever it might be. We want to be able to recall the animal—with a sound, a bell, a shout, a call,” said Macek.
While normally this brings the animal back to its enclosure, occasionally an animal opts to take refuge in their habitat.
“A couple of elephants that were out, but they went immediately into the water, which I think is just an instinctual thing to do. The other animals just all fared well. Animals generally are adapted to understand how to respond to severe weather.”
Macek stressed recalling animals is important not only for their safety but potentially guests as well. He explained that if debris breaches the wall of an animal enclosure, they could escape. This would be especially dangerous if it were a carnivorous species such as tigers and bears.
In total, Macek believes 95% of all animals were recalled, including all carnivorous species.
“Primarily we I feel relatively lucky and that it was mostly just the loss of a really, frankly, a lot of large, beautiful trees.”
The tornado damaged a few roofs, some fencing, part of the exterior wall and most notably, the Butterfly House's glass dome.
"Very few, if any, butterflies are missing from the Mary Ann Lee Butterfly Wing. Only a handful, a very small number, flew out after the tree broke the glass, and those were collected by staff. When the tree was on the dome it acted like a canopy, keeping most of the butterflies inside so that the keepers could collect them," stated a Zoo representative. "As you know, the butterflies and chrysalis from the Butterfly Wing and the Bayer Insectarium all moved to the Missouri Botanical Garden's Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House in Faust Park. Our two institutions are great partners, always helping each other out in times of need."
Instead of taking donations for the Zoo, Macek wants people’s attention focused on those who personally suffered from the tornado.
“So it's really what can we do for them?” said Macek. “So if they needed to get their head in a different space, the zoo is the place to be.>
Though the Zoo is open now, Macek hoped to get all exhibits reopened by May 22, but that was not the case as of Thursday morning. He said it’ll certainly be open by the holiday weekend.
Outside of the Zoo, Forest Park suffered the loss of many trees too which took people by surprise as they visited the largest metropolitan park in the US.
“I've never seen this many trees down in this big of an area and its just sad to see these giant trees that have been around who knows how many years,” said Tracy Housom, Crestwood resident. “They're just snapped in half and it'll change the park for a little bit for sure.”
Hundreds of uprooted trees blocked roadways, sidewalks and caused additional damage.
“Soon as we got off Hampton we saw logs and were like oh they're doing some logging work today,” Patrick Hinkle, St. Louis City resident. “Then we came further into the park and there's trees down everywhere, leafs everywhere, trash everywhere from the trash cans.”
While crews continue to work on clearing debris, the city has asked that people temporarily steer clear of Forest Park.
The Muny is accessing their damage and state the cleanup may continue for weeks. As of Thursday, no updates related to storm clean-up progress have been posted on their social media accounts.
Missouri History Museum will remain closed Thursday, stated the museum on social media and the scheduled American Red Cross blood drive has been canceled.
Saint Louis Science Center did not sustain any damage, per their social media page, and operates normally.
