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It's another story about 13 miles away, in the Lewis Place neighborhood of north ¹û½´ÊÓƵ. The same New Year's Eve storm unleashed a separate tornado on the neighborhood's 19th-century brick homes, leveling some and tearing off roofs and exterior walls on others.

The neighborhood remains in shambles. And residents, many of whom did not have insurance, accuse City Hall of dropping the ball on $1 million in assistance promised to homeowners. So far, none of the money has been spent.

Joseph Henderson, 61, had to have his mother's home on Enright Avenue torn down. She was one of the residents who had insurance. Henderson lives on the street, too, but he was uninsured, and his mother gave him money to help repair his home after it was damaged by the tornado.

"We aren't looking to get anything out of this, but (the city) should help the people in the community," he said while peering inside a neighbor's house that is missing its entire brick rear. "If we had been waiting for them, we would have been homeless."

13 TORNADOES HIT

Starting shortly before noon on Dec. 31, 2010, 13 tornadoes cut through the ¹û½´ÊÓƵ region. The same storm produced a twister that killed four people in Rolla, Mo.

Here, the storm claimed Margaret Birkes, 70, of Fenton, who died a week later from injuries suffered after a twister threw her vehicle against a median wall on Highway 141.

The storm downed trees and damaged buildings in several communities, but hardest hit were Sunset Hills, Lewis Place and Robertsville, an unincorporated area of eastern Franklin County where a tornado damaged more than 60 homes and businesses.

The damage, however, was not widespread enough to warrant a White House disaster declaration. That would have turned on a spigot of federal aid and triggered assistance from state and federal emergency-management agencies.

Because that didn't happen, homeowners were largely on their own. Unlike in Sunset Hills, many Lewis Place residents lacked insurance, or didn't carry enough of it.

Without insurance, homeowners like Helence McDaniel faced the prospect of becoming homeless. She was able to borrow more than $20,000 from relatives to stabilize her house in the 4500 block of Lewis Place and keep it from being condemned. But more repairs are needed inside.

Still, McDaniel is one of the lucky ones.

75 HOMES DAMAGED

"If we hadn't gotten the money to repair my house, it would still look like these," she said, pointing to homes with blue tarps and collapsed roofs.

At least 75 Lewis Place homes were damaged by the tornado, according to Pamela Talley, who runs Lewis Place Historical Preservation Inc., a neighborhood-improvement group. At least 15 of those houses were destroyed, according to a tally by emergency management officials.

Talley accuses ¹û½´ÊÓƵ officials of failing to make good on promises by Mayor Francis Slay, who pledged to help rebuild a neighborhood that figures prominently in civil rights history. Until the 1940s, blacks were forbidden from buying homes on the gated, private Lewis Place street until a watershed court victory voided the restrictive covenants.

In June, Slay set aside $500,000 in federal block grant money to match state funding for Lewis Place homeowners. But, according to Talley, the city has been too slow in distributing the money, and its application process was too complicated, especially for elderly residents.

START FROM SCRATCH

City officials said they initially intended to use the money only for repairs at owner-occupied homes that were not insured. But there were far fewer applications than expected, so the city will loosen eligibility requirements to include owner-occupied homes that were underinsured at the time of the storm.

Slay spokeswoman Kara Bowlin defended the city's commitment to Lewis Place and said the delay in funding repairs was unavoidable.

Bowlin said the city had to design the program from scratch, including eligibility requirements and an application process. And there was an additional layer of red tape, she said, because the city will use federal block grant money.

"The mayor has promised to help people, and we're doing it," she said. "It just takes some time."

The help could start coming soon. This week, the city mailed letters to the owners of 10 buildings who have been approved for financial assistance, said Bill Rataj, director of housing programs at the city's Community Development Administration.

Rataj said that, on average, the owners qualify for about $30,000 in assistance. The city has approved rebuilding plans for six of the approved applicants.

"Conceivably, they could start working next week — weather permitting," Rataj said.

Regardless of city help, many Lewis Place residents feel their suffering has been forgotten. The New Year's Eve storm was quickly overshadowed, first by the Good Friday tornado that destroyed and damaged hundreds of north ¹û½´ÊÓƵ homes and caused at least $25 million in damages at Lambert-¹û½´ÊÓƵ International Airport and, later, by the May 22 tornado in Joplin, Mo.

FEW VISIBLE SCARS

In Sunset Hills, where few visible scars from last year's storm remain, the damage has been largely cleaned up.

All that's left to do, said Mayor Bill Nolan, is find a developer for the empty lots where houses destroyed by the tornado once stood and where the owners have moved elsewhere.

The lots, on and near Lindbergh Boulevard south of Watson Road, were considered for a commercial development, but the city's planning and zoning board refused to rezone the properties because it wanted to keep the area residential.

But Nolan said that, because of the economy, home builders have little interest in putting up new housing.

For now, the city appears ready to move on. A commemoration scheduled for 11 a.m. today will feature a tattered flag that flew at Watson Trail Park and had to be rescued from storm debris. The flag, now framed, will hang in the city's Community Center.

"It gives us the opportunity to drive a nail in the entire experience and the (recovery) process," Nolan said. "Everything is cleaned up and done, and we're OK in Sunset Hills."