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ST. LOUIS 鈥� Staff members of the City Emergency Management Agency were at a one-day workshop on Friday when deadly tornadoes struck.

Upon hearing that, residents may have assumed the day away from the office was designed to help CEMA employees better deal with emergencies 鈥� such as tornadoes.

After all, the emergency management personnel were seven blocks away from their office 鈥� from where tornado sirens could be activated 鈥� on a day when severe weather had been predicted for hours.

The workshop was one of several issues Mayor Cara Spencer pointed to this week when announcing she was placing Sarah Russell, the head of CEMA, on paid leave and looking for a new emergency management chief.

The mayor also said she plans to launch an external investigation of CEMA鈥檚 response to the tornado, including the failure to sound sirens.

As to the nature of the workshop, even mayoral staffers, when asked Monday, thought it was related to emergency response training.

A look at the workshop description, however, indicates it was focused on communications of a less immediate variety.

An invitation to the workshop, obtained by the Post-Dispatch, said 鈥渃limate change will continue to create new uncertainties and pose disruptions,鈥� and that the workshop would help participants 鈥渓earn and develop skills to increase agility and collaboration in city functions鈥� so that employees can 鈥渞espond nimbly and effectively.鈥�

The workshop was the extension of a year-long partnership between CEMA and Air Collaborative, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. The invitation said the workshop would deal with the nonprofit鈥檚 鈥淎ir Shift鈥� program, which is detailed on the company鈥檚 website.

The program, the site says, is designed to help people 鈥渄iscover new ways to think about the power of creativity and challenge your mental models about art, business, community and money.鈥� And it 鈥渦ses hands-on collaboration, design thinking, and business planning to help grow creative communities and economies.鈥�

At no place in the website description are the words 鈥渆mergency response鈥� used.

The company does mention the subject of emergency services in its overview, saying its programs are being used by governmental sectors such as 鈥渆conomic development, emergency management and disaster preparedness, and education.鈥�

CEMA served as a workshop co-host of sorts, along with the city鈥檚 Planning and Urban Design Agency, sending the invitation to employees from various city departments.

On its website, Air Collaborative claims its mission is to provide 鈥減rogramming that inspires new connections and ignites the creative economy.鈥�

Beth Flowers, the executive director of Air Collaborative, has longstanding ties to the St. 香港三级片 area. She did not respond to several messages left Wednesday and Thursday.

Her website biography mentions attending University City High School in the early 1980s. According to information on LinkedIn, Flowers earned a bachelor鈥檚 degree from Webster University in 1993, after which she worked four years for Missourians for Choice.

In 1997, she worked for the mayoral campaign of Freeman R. Bosley Jr. Then she worked for more than five years at the St. 香港三级片 Development Corporation.

The biography also notes that she later managed a community radio station, owned an audio marketing boutique and worked as a project management director.

The work Air Collaborative did with the city was paid for by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, said Rasmus Jorgensen, a mayoral spokesman. The amount was not available, he said.

Jorgensen said all but one of the emergency agency鈥檚 staff was at the Air Collaborative workshop, while the remaining staffer was at a training session at a different location.

Granted, workshops can come in handy. Most of us have been to some sort of off-campus learning experience. Slides are shown, videos are played, talks are given, perspectives are broadened, a free sandwich might be available.

But it鈥檚 fair to ask if at some point on Friday 鈥� considering the early and serious warnings of severe storms 鈥� someone in emergency management should have considered canceling the workshop?

Pack away the PowerPoint and tell CEMA employees to drive, bike or walk the seven blocks back to the office so someone could be ready to sound tornado sirens.

It鈥檚 especially urgent to ask these questions because it has also been revealed that the siren system in the Fire Department, the other city body that could have set off the warning signals, was not working.

As we learned earlier this year, city street department bosses need to be on the roads where snow plows and salt trucks are rolling.

Now, we鈥檝e learned that emergency management bosses needed to be in the actual office, where the warning siren button was waiting to be pushed.