About.
The Porch Light is a monthly briefing on conditions in Tower Grove South, published by the TGHNA Safety Committee from official sources only. It exists to inform without amplifying fear.
Four desks, every issue
Weather, boil-water, and health advisories while they are in effect, and the rare Red Alert.
02StreetsService requests to the city, street work, and traffic-calming bills for the 6th Ward.
CrimeVerified incidents by block and category, with two years of context so one month is never read alone.
04Utilities & AirToday’s air quality, sewer and water notices, and where to check outages.
The rules
What never appears here.
Exact addresses or coordinates. Descriptions of people. Details about anyone involved. Rumors, social feeds, or resident-submitted reports.
What always does.
Locations at block level, like 46XX Kossuth. Official sources, cited where they appear. Plain, factual language. Long-run context beside every number.
These rules are written into the software that builds the site. Every page is checked before it can publish, and a page that fails the check does not publish.
Three volumes
Notice, advisory, alert.
A notice is routine. An advisory is in effect now and worth knowing. A Red Alert is rare: a verified, life-safety matter with something specific to do. It is the only time you will see red on this site, it always names its official source, and it goes out by email at the same moment.
How it works
Monthly on purpose.
Built for trend and context, not speed. The crime desk updates when SLMPD publishes each month’s file; advisories and air quality refresh daily. For up-to-the-day detail, SLMPD’s daily crime map is the authoritative source.
The camera registry is private.
Neighbors who host cameras are listed in a committee-held document that is never published and never mapped. Requests for footage go through the committee, never neighbor to neighbor, and every request is logged.
Nothing to sign up for.
No accounts, no cookies, no analytics, no third-party requests. The one thing we offer is a single email list: the monthly issue and rare alerts, with a one-click unsubscribe on every message.
Who makes this
Neighbors, not a company.
The TGHNA Safety Committee: volunteers who live here. Two members review every alert before it goes out.
Come to a TGHNA meeting to join or ask a question.
Figures are preliminary and subject to revision. NIBRS counts reported offenses, not calls for service. Air-quality readings are preliminary data credited to EPA AirNow.