St. Louis' main airport partially reopened Saturday as crews cleaned up after a tornado that tore through a terminal and destroyed homes nearby.
Friday evening's storm at Lambert International Airport ripped away a large section of the main terminal's roof, forcing the airport to close and diverting incoming flights to other cities. National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Truett confirmed Saturday that it was a tornado that struck St. Louis — an EF4 storm, the strongest to hit the area since 1967.
The first inbound flights landed late Saturday afternoon. Airport Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge said there would be eight or nine arrivals Saturday night from Delta, AirTran and Southwest. She said about 70 percent of the scheduled inbound and outbound flights would go on as planned starting at 6 a.m. Sunday.
Hamm-Niebruegge said Concourse C sustained heavy damage and would remain closed for up to two months. A full schedule of flights was expected to take a few more days as airlines were moved from the damaged concourse to vacant gates in Concourses B and D.
Around St. Louis, debris from splintered homes covered the ground in neighborhoods, while topped trees and overturned cars littered lawns and driveways. From the air, one home looked like a dollhouse that had had its roof lifted off. Looking down, the dining room table and other contents could be seen, damp in lingering rain.
"It was horrific. For that much damage to be done and no one lost their life, it is simply a blessing," said Charlie Dooley, St. Louis County's executive.
There were 500 people at the airport when the storm hit, KSDK-TV reported. But only four people with minor injuries were taken to the hospital from Lambert, while an unspecified number of others were treated at the scene for cuts blamed on flying glass. There were no reports of injuries anywhere else.
Cleanup swung into full gear Saturday. With the din of chain saws and pounding hammers in the background, homeowners sifted through wreckage while crews scrambled to restore power to the 31,700 customers still without it.
At Lambert, workers boarded up windows and swept up glass in the main terminal, where the twister had torn off part of the roof on one concourse and blown out half of the large, plate-glass windows. The domed design of the main terminal, dating to the mid-1950s, was the handiwork of Minoru Yamasaki, the Modernist architect of New York City's World Trade Center twin towers toppled in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The airport was expected to reopen Sunday, officials said.
High winds, possibly from the same tornado, damaged an estimated 50 homes in Maryland Heights, not far from the airport, and a 45-foot-tall steeple fell during evening Mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Church. Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson said there was a swath of damage through his community, also near the airport, consistent with a tornado. Several other St. Louis County communities reported damage to homes and numerous trees and power lines down.
The storm also brought absurdly large hail to some areas — softball-sized in Warren County, west of St. Louis. Flash flooding closed some roads, including Highway 67 near Farmington.
At the airport, a spokeswoman for Southwest Airlines Co. said one of its planes was damaged when the wind pushed a conveyor belt for loading baggage into it. Five other planes on the ground when the tornado hit were OK, spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said. Southwest — the biggest carrier at Lambert, with 85 departures per day — canceled all St. Louis flights through 4 p.m. Saturday.
American Airlines, which operates out of the heavily hit main terminal, said four of its planes were damaged, two of them significantly. Crosswinds of 80 mph buffeted one plane that was taxiing in from a landing when the tornado hit, and that plane was being checked for possible damage to its landing gear, spokesman Ed Martelle said. American canceled 51 flights on Saturday, five dozen on Sunday and its first seven Monday morning.
"We're going to have to re-create our infrastructure at Lambert," Martelle said. "The question is, how many additional gates can we borrow, because none of ours are going to be functional for some time."
Hundreds of travelers were delayed, and a dozen who stayed in the terminal Friday night were given pillows and blankets, Hamm-Niebruegge said. All had left the airport by Saturday morning, and officials thought most were staying with friends or family. Still, Hamm-Niebruegge said it could have been worse — the storm hit on a night when the airport is generally less busy.
Incoming flights were being diverted to Kansas City, according to the airport website.
Passengers from at least two planes were stranded briefly on the Lambert tarmac because of debris but were later taken away by buses. An Air National Guard facility at the airport reportedly was damaged.
'The ceiling was falling'
Dianna Merrill, 43, a mail carrier from St. Louis, was at Lambert airport waiting to fly to New York with a friend for vacation. She said her flight had been delayed by weather and she was looking out a window hoping her plane would pull up. But the window suddenly exploded.
"Glass was blowing everywhere. The ceiling was falling. The glass was hitting us in the face. Hail and rain were coming in. The wind was blowing debris all over the place," she said. "It was like being in a horror movie. Grown men were crying. It was horrible."
Merrill said she felt lucky to be alive and that airport workers quickly moved people to stairwells and bathrooms to get them out of harm's way.
Curran Hennessey, a Michigan resident waiting to return home, told KSDK he was seated in a plane connected to the gate when the storm hit. He said strong winds picked the plane up and moved it about 20 feet. No one was seriously injured in that incident.
In downtown St. Louis, Busch Stadium officials hurriedly moved Cardinals fans to shelter areas as tornado sirens blared.
Brian Broton, a spokesman for the baseball team, said thousands of fans were moved to bathrooms, stairwells and hallways across the stadium. There were no reports of damage at the stadium, where the game was delayed for 2 hours, 10 minutes.
Vivi Magana, 17, and her parents were trying to clean up the mess at their Bridgeton home, where a huge tree in the front yard had been pulled out by the roots. An even larger tree in the back was split down the middle. A sliding glass door was shattered, and holes were in the roof.
Magana said the family was in the living room Friday night when her mother heard a roar of wind. As they rushed to the basement, Magana saw a lawn chair smash through the glass door. They emerged when the wind stopped.
"Everyone was screaming to make sure we were all OK," Magana said.
Severe storms and tornadoes last week killed at least 47 people in several states.