St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page A005

04.25.2011 MONDAY 1 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH A5 TORNADO DAMAGE ACROSS THE REGION The National Weather Service has confirmed two tornadoes from the Good Friday storm that ripped through the St. Louis area. The first touched down along Freese Lane near Foristell Road just northwest of New Melle in St. Charles County and caused much damage traveling through the Auburn Meadows subdivision and east along Foristell before lifting about two miles northeast near Dardenne Creek.

The much more destructive second tornado first touched down along the northern edge of Creve Coeur Lake about 7:55 p.m. and traveled 22 miles east through St. Louis County and across the Mississippi River into the Granite City area. Along the way, it plowed through subdivisions in Maryland Heights and Bridgeton, where it reached its estimated peak winds of 166 to 200 mph. Then it hit the main terminal at Lambert-St.

Louis International Airport and made a destructive path through Berkeley and other communities in north St. Louis County before heading just south of the Chain of Rocks bridge into Illinois and damaging more than 100 homes in the Granite City area. Tornado strength scale EF1: 86-110 mph winds; "moderate" damage EF2: 111-135 mph winds; "considerable" damage EF3: 136-165 mph winds; "severe" damage EF4: 166-200 mph winds; "extreme" damage 9 Bridgeton Dellwood I Lambert Berke ev I "iverview fEF2l TORNADO BV VLif Neghbors r.it. Granite PATH Maryland I New I Melle City ST. CHARLES COUNTY Heights MADISON COUNTY (25 9 Missouri River ILLINOIS Busch Wildlife Area MISSOURI ST.

LOUIS CITY ST. LOUIS COUNTY 9 County and municipal officials around the area are still seeking to assess the damage to homes and businesses. Initially, authorities estimated about 2,700 dwellings sustained damage that required further inspection. As of Sunday afternoon, inspectors had confirmed damage at nearly 1,800 dwellings, with more than 500 of those having restricted access and more than 200 completely uninhabitable. Those numbers are expected to increase as more inspections are completed.

SOURCES: National Weather Service, Emergency Management officials I Post-Dispatch EMILY RASINSKI A plane from Lambert-St. Louis International Airport soars over Beaverton Drive in Bridgeton, which was devastated by Friday's tornado. EMILY RASINSKI Sophia Zegar, 8, asks her father, Sergio, whether the photo she found Sunday in the yard of their Bridgeton home was theirs. It wasn't. Sophia, Sergio and his sister were home when the storm hit.

After hearing the sirens and warnings on TV, they took refuge in the bathroom in their basement of their home on Beaverton Drive. "I think God's hand was protecting it," Sergio Zegar said of the room. J.B. FORBES Paul May, 38, inspects the giant oak tree that fell on his truck Friday night in Ferguson. His home had minor damage, but he lost all of his trees.

His wife had just left to get Chinese carryout when the tornado hit. Had she still been home, her car would have been crushed, too. LAMBERT FROM Al Airport recovery is taking off with the number of flights due to return to near normal today; passengers change plans on the fly "THEY CHANGED MY TICKET 11 TIMES IN TWO DAYS." Lonnie Randolph of Effingham, III. a plane to Cincinnati. But after flights to St.

Louis were canceled there, too, he rented a car and drove the rest of the way. "They changed my ticket 11 times in two days," he said. Best Transportation, the limousine and sedan service, was booked Sunday driving people all over the Midwest, said agent Er-ington Smith. The company cut prices by half, in some cases, she said, and drove travelers to Bloomington, 111., Kansas City and even Chicago typically an $800 to $1,000 trip. But she said Sunday was back to business as usual.

"Everyone is tired," she said. "They just want to go home." seats, and even plastic consoles and armrests. "It could be worse," Appel said, nodding down the row, where a blue SUV had been picked up and put down with its back end on top of the car next to it. Others had been slammed into one another, and even more simply lifted and turned around. Airport officials said that, considering that destruction, they were pleased with Sunday's progress.

"We're fairly satisfied with what's going on today," Hamm-Niebruegge said. The number of total departures neared 70 percent of normal Sunday, she said, and Southwest had not canceled a single flight that day. She said 100 flights of the 234 normally scheduled had left as of midafternoon Sunday, with many more set to depart. Concourse which was heavily damaged by the tornado, remained closed. Frontier Airlines and AirTran moved to Concourse and operated some flights.

American Airlines and the regional carrier Cape Air moved to the formerly shuttered Concourse D. American will restart operations this morning, Cape Air on Tuesday. Hamm-Niebruegge said she even expected at least one restaurant to move into Concourse and fill old storefronts. She also anticipated no long-term impact on airport revenue. Even one day's delay in reopening could have cost the airport as much as a half-million dollars in lost income.

Instead, Sunday, both terminals were busy with travelers. And nearly everyone talked about the unexpected twists of their weekend travels. Mike Deering, 54, of St. Charles, picked up his wife flying in from Charlotte, N.C., on Sun day. Her original flight had been in the air, just 10 minutes from St.

Louis Friday night, Deering said, but had turned around. Lonnie Randolph, 62, of Effingham, had been in Florida for work and made it as far as Atlanta on Friday. "We were in there until midnight," he said. "And they kept canceling flight after flight." The next morning, he caught.