(NECN: Scot Yount, St Louis, MO) - Flights are departing the St. Louis airport for the first time since a tornado struck two days ago. Good news as the cleanup and temporary repairs continued.
The heavily damaged C Concourse remains closed, but airport and city officials hope to have the field operating at about 70 percent capacity. Despite that progress, dozens of departing flights are still canceled.
It could take up to two months to bring the airfield back to full capacity which will no doubt cause travelers trouble and hurt some airport commerce as well as some businesses in the greater St. Louis area
The tornado that struck the airport on Friday night broke panes of glass, tossed a shuttle bus onto a roof and damaged a few planes. Nine St. Louis County communities were also hit. Governor Jay Nixon says 750 homes in the St. Louis area are damaged.
Five people were injured when the twister struck Lambert, but remarkably nobody was hurt seriously.
