So I Guess I’m Out of the Weather Business

There was a time when I was touting one of St. Louis’ sleeper assets as—believe it or not—its weather. Throughout most of 2024 (and before), candidates were moving from the likes of California, Texas, Arizona, and Florida. Tired of the fires. Tired of 113-degree days in October. Tired of disappearing insurance policies and looming evacuation orders.

St. Louis wasn’t exactly a climate haven. But compared to where they were coming from, it wasn’t exactly a hazard either—not that kind of hazard, anyway. In fact, the unpredictability of our weather had its own kind of charm: Yes, it gets cold, but there are breaks. Yes, it gets hot and humid, but not without reprieve. And tornadoes? Sure. But usually out in the plains, far from where they’d be living. Maybe they’d head down to their new basement a time or two come spring (one they didn’t have in L.A.). But mostly, after the meteorologist’s warnings, they’d go on about their day.

We’d pick up recruits at Lambert and drive them through the leafy, shaded stretches of Wydown-Skinker, Lindell, Pershing, Union, among others. They’d say: Wow, it’s so green. Look at this architecture! Look at these trees! I miss the sound of a thunderstorm, and I can’t wait to have my own garden.

For their next chapter, I assured them they’d be getting a Goldilocks glimpse of winter, spring, summer, and fall—an outdoor life that was neither frozen tundra nor drought-ridden desert. And it wasn’t marketing spin, either. It was my genuine lived experience for the better part of the last two decades since moving home.

And then: 2025.

A forever January. Lingering ice storms. Snow that wouldn’t melt. Unplowed roads that left schools closed and a region looking more like Alaska than Missouri. A soggy spring that never quite dried. A summer that never quite arrived.

Followed by an EF3 tornado through the heart of it all. The very kind I’d said almost never forms over the core of the city.

Until it did.

Right where many new St. Louisans had chosen to live and work: DeMun. DeBaliviere Place. Central West End. Delmar Makers District. Greater Ville. From Forest Park to Fountain Park. Gutted. Torn. Changed.

People started to call and text—some joking, some not so much: “Anthony, you’ve got some explaining to do.” And they weren’t wrong. So many had moved here, open to the idea that the media reputation they’d heard about St. Louis didn’t tell the whole story. They trusted the in-betweens. They trusted me. The promises that it’d be OK here. That they would be OK.

And in many ways, that was true.

But it sure hasn’t felt that way. Not lately. What had been once-in-a-generation anomalies to us natives became, in one form or another, near-monthly events for them. Out of the gate, it was as though their entire St. Louis experience was marked by rare exceptions I’d been swearing up and down weren’t the rule.

So what do you say when your city gets hit in the very places you’d been lifting up as reasons to believe? To move here? To fall in love with the Midwest? When the very streets that saw hundreds of recruits give us a chance become unrecognizable? When you lose not just a part, but nearly the plot itself?

You stop.

You can’t spin it. You can’t pivot to a silver lining. You say: This hurts. Because it does.

You take a cue from our new mayor—hard fought and newly into the fray—and don’t pretend it didn’t happen or hide behind platitudes. You stand up and say: Here’s where we failed. Here’s what we’re learning. Here’s where we need help.

Then you say: I’m sorry. I’m here. And with blistered hands and broken hearts, you get back to work. Repairing, replanting, rebuilding. One step forward, ten steps back. Two steps forward. So on and so forth.

Perhaps that’s what healing looks like. What leadership looks like. What change looks like.

Because the real story of St. Louis was never just the weather. Never just free museums, the sports dynasties, or some glossy brochure. It’s the people who stay. The ones who dig in. The artisans, restaurateurs, educators, and volunteers. The pastors, foremen, chefs, and neighbors—many hit hard themselves—who show up anyway. Who shovel. Who cook. Who clear branches, share tools, walk the block—even when their own roof is gone.

I like to say there are cities of wings and cities of roots. And St. Louis is—utterly, for better and worse—the latter. Our roots run deep. Too deep, some might argue. They anchor us when things fall apart. They hold fast when everything else gives way. But they also tangle, stall, and slow the leap forward.

But sometimes, like now, they break ground. Pushing up through pavement, through grief, through history—on the surface again—for all the world to see. Exposed. Ripped. Raw. Impossible to ignore.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s what it is to be St. Louis. A place and a people, proud and weary, wrestling with everything they carry. No longer able to hide our cracks. No longer smoothing over what’s broken. A city that shows each of its parts. Even the ones that hurt. Especially the ones that hurt.

So no, I won’t be using the weather as a selling point anytime soon. But I’ll keep guiding and driving people through St. Louis, broken and beautiful, as I always have. Past the canopied streets and the neighborhoods surrounding Forest Park, where the shade once fell and giants once stood. Where, like a phantom limb, I still feel them. Where the visitors beside me might not know what’s missing. But I will. Always.

And when we come to the saplings—planted for the next generation who will live, work, and grow here—I’ll stop. I’ll water them. I’ll tell them what came before. I’ll tell them why we stayed. Why they’ll be needed.

Because the roots are still here—ours and theirs to honor.

To carry.

To protect.

To deepen.

To give rise again.

Anthony P. Bartlett is the president of Acclimate (formerly St. Louis Transplants), based in the Delmar Loop, a company that helps job candidates imagine a life in the city—and stay.