This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, April 25, 2011 - Jeff Lea, public relations manager at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, said Sunday morning that the airport is now open for arrivals and departures. "The first flights took off from Lambert early Easter morning, less than 36 hours after a tornado caused extensive damage to the airport complex," he added.
While Lea expects that the airport will have 60 percent of its flights operational Sunday, he urges travelers to contact their airline for the latest flight information. On Monday, Lambert officials expect Terminal 1 to be 80 percent operational and Terminal 2 to be 100 percent operational.
He adds: Frontier Airlines and AirTran are now operating on the B Concourse. Passengers can access those gates through the B Checkpoint. Frontier is now operating out of B10. Air Tran is operating out of B12.
American Airlines and Cape Air have been moved to the once closed D Concourse. American is planning to begin operations Monday morning. Cape Air will begin Tuesday morning. American will operate out of gates D2, D4 and D6. Cape Air will operate out of D8 and D10. Those passengers can access American and Cape Air gates through the C Concourse.
Metro is also fully operational with MetroLink service to Lambert.
Meanwhile, Pattonville and Riverview Gardens school districts said they will be unable to have classes on Monday because of damage and power outages from Friday night's storm.
Update at 7:23 a.m. Sunday:
Officials at Lambert Airport said operations were slowly returning to normal, with some flights leaving Sunday after arrivals resumed Saturday night.
The traffic began moving again about 24 hours after a powerful tornado did millions of dollars of damage to the facility. The Starbucks in the main terminal was reopened, officials said on Twitter, and concessions have reopened in the east terminal. Officials had said they wanted to be back up to 70 percent capacity by Sunday afternoon, depending on how the airlines respond; they stressed to call the airlines to find out the status of whatever flight you may need information about.
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The National Weather Service said the storm that struck Friday night was, at its peak, an EF-4 tornado -- the strongest tornado to hit the St. Louis area since 1967. The tornado was an EF-2 or EF-3 when it struck Lambert, a Weather Service spokesman said, shattering glass throughout Terminal 1, known for its distinctive architecture and soaring windows.
The airport is working to move four airlines temporarily off heavily damaged Concourse C to vacant gates in Concourses B and D.
Airport Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge said that Terminal 2, used by Southwest, had suffered little damage.
Until outbound flights resume, Hamm-Niebruegge said Saturday that Lambert was asking that the public show up at the airport only if they are picking up passengers. The public also is encouraged to use MetroLink, because many airport parking lots -- including the top of the main parking garage -- are still covered with shattered glass and other storm debris.
Repairs will likely take months, the director added.
"We're not going to have the prettiest airport tomorrow, but we will have an operational airport."
Lambert will continue to post updates on Twitter @flystl.
Our earlier story:
Officials at Lambert Airport say they hope to be back up to 70 percent capacity by Sunday afternoon following a "tornadic supercell" that caused millions of dollars of damage and closed the airport down Friday night.
Most of the damage was to Concourse C and to the main terminal building, where workers labored through the night to begin the long cleanup and repair process. The east terminal and the airfield were in good shape, officials said, so once full power is restored, operations can be shifted to other areas of the airport and flights can resume as long as the airlines have the personnel they need to operate.
No one was killed in the storms, St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley said at a news conference at Lambert Saturday morning. Five people who had been taken from the airport with minor injuries were treated at local hospitals and released, according to airport director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge.
After the news conference, Dooley pulled out a map that showed in stark red and blue the areas that were hardest hit by the storm, which struck the airport about 8:15 p.m. He said if you draw a line from Harrah' s casino in Riverport all the way east to the Chain of Rocks area at the Mississippi River, the heaviest damage was about a half-mile either side.
He termed the storm "horrific" and said hundreds of homes were damaged, but he expressed gratitude that no one was killed.
"The first responders did an excellent job," Dooley said. "Everybody got involved. They did a fantastic job, but there is still a lot of work to be done."
The National Weather Service said Saturday morning that a "tornadic supercell" had caused damage from New Melle in St. Charles County across the river to Granite City in Madison County. It said it will be surveying the tornado damage over the weekend to determine the number and intensity of tornadoes that occurred.
Joining Dooley and Hamm-Niebruegge at the news conference in the darkened airport terminal, powered by emergency generators, were St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and representatives of the state, Ameren Missouri, Metro, the Red Cross and other agencies that were working to clean up the airport and get it back into operation.
Rich Bradley, president of the city's Board of Public Service, said Concourse C suffered the heaviest damage, in the millions of dollars, with windows shattered, the roof damaged and much of the area suffering water damage from the heavy rain that accompanied the tornado. He said there was minimal damage to the airfield itself, primarily cleanup, but a lot of the signage at the airport was blown down. The tower was not damaged.
"There are some things that are going to take considerable time to restore," Bradley said. "It's certainly not going to be a quick fix. We just ask everyone for their patience."
Hamm-Niebruegge said if things go smoothly, the airport could be up to 100 percent capacity by the middle of next week, though that does not necessarily mean that the airlines will feel ready to begin complete operations. She stressed that passengers wondering whether their flights were going to proceed as scheduled should call their airlines, not the airport.
When and whether flights can resume, she said, will depend on when power is restored and when airlines have the ability to get crews to St. Louis to handle operations.
She said the airport will use insurance benefits to pay for repairs plus seeking assistance from the state and federal government. U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, said he had briefed the White House on the situation and would seek whatever funds are available from Washington. Slay said Gov. Jay Nixon had pledged to do what he can with assistance from the state.
"This landmark building has taken a direct hit from a natural disaster," Clay said.
On Friday night, Nixon signed an order to declare a state of emergency in Missouri in response to the severe weather. His office said the governor had spoken with Slay to offer any state assistance or resources necessary to assist the city's response and recovery efforts.
Hamm-Niebruegge said that five American Airlines planes were on the ground when the tornado hit. One 757 was damaged when a jet bridge was blown into it. The others suffered minor damage, she said.
Slay told the news conference that crews that worked through the night made the situation much better than it was after the height of the storm, and "we are confident we will make this airport as good as it's ever been."
Along Interstate 70, evidence was everywhere of the capricious nature of the storm. A large electronic billboard west of the airport was completely blown down, and the back wall of a business had been peeled away, exposing its contents to the traffic that was backed up as drivers stopped to look and workers cleared away debris.
In other spots, buildings had not been touched.
Ameren Missouri said about 30,000 customers remained out of power around noon Saturday. Metro said it was operating only as far as the Hanley Road station, the last stop before the airport, and its bus routes had been severely disrupted because of storm damage. Passengers were advised to check the system's website, metrostlouis.org.
Red Cross officials said anyone needing assistance can contact the agency by dialing 2-1-1.
As workers tried to restore power and clear debris, the rain kept falling, and the National Weather Service forecast did not promise much relief, with a chance of showers and thunderstorms through Wednesday and a flash flood watch for much of the St. Louis area.
Hamm-Niebruegge estimated that hundreds of people had been in the main terminal or Concourse C when the storm hit. Most of them went to area hotels, but about a dozen spent the night in the main terminal, she said.
One of them was Jesse Crommie, a soldier who just completed training at Fort Leonard Wood and was trying to get home to Portland, Ore., when the storm hit. He had been in St. Louis for a Cardinals game and arrived at the airport about 4:30 p.m. Friday. Unable to get a room in any of the sold-out hotels, he spent the night in the darkened terminal, he said.
"I was walking around," he said, "and the next thing you know the windows were exploding. I thought, 'What the hell is going on?' then just started running like everybody else."
Crommie said airport officials weren't able to provide cots or anything else to make his overnight stay more comfortable. He spent much of the night watching movies on his laptop computer, he said.