i want our viewers to know as well jessica has been giving us this number, 1-800-red cross, that s for people that would like to call to help out, but also you can get information specific to st. louis about shelters, about the effort going on there, but again, that s 1-800-redcross if you want to help or need help right now. turn right over to karen mcginnis, i feel silly at times this morning because i keep having to say alleged tornado. there s a reason we have to say it, but who are we kidding here? yes, it looked like tornadic damage and tornadic supercell on the radar. and st. louis got hit not once but twice by a squall line, a severe line of storms. here s st. louis, it was along the northern edge of the metro region. now, i want to put this into motion and just show you what happened. we go about 10:00, 11:30 in the morning, one line, already produced the rainfall. here comes the system and the cells that produced the tornadic
power back on. calleded this a flat-o ed thiee blessing, saying no one has been killed from the storms last night. hard to believe from looking at damage. the airport administrator telling us five people had to be taken to the hospital from the airport last night, three were in the terminal, two of them were in cars outside the airport. and would you believe already that those folks have all been released from the hospital? it is stunning to hear this news after seeing these daytime pictures coming in to us for the past several hours now that the utter devastation that we have watched and that at this point we re talking about no one in the hospital and only minor injuries to report. we can only hope that it stays that way. we ll keep a close eye on this. it s 17 past the hour. when we come back, there s still going to be a need there in st. louis, and it is going to be great. the red cross is on the ground. they have mobilized and they re helping out now. we re speaking to one of th
more of these. people walking through the rubble of their homes, trying to pluck out anything to salvage. i want to bring back in jessica willingham, she s with the red cross. jessica, you and i have been talking on the air the past several hours now. how has your perspective of this devastation changed in the few short hours from what you ve been able to collect? well, we ve while we continue, the red cross, continues to provide shelter and food and clothing and basic need for folks, and that started last night, what we re seeing now is more and more people realizing the extent of the damage for their homes. so, the red cross is working with emergency responders and all the folks that you just heard on the press conference to make sure that everybody has a safe place to stay and that their emergency needs are met. we re teaming up with the emergency responders and the city and the county to do damage assessment and to help people move on to the next step. and as we continue to w
new ones, that continue to come in to us. also, this morning the u.s. carries out its first drone attack in libya as rebels gain serious ground in the beseiged town of misrata. and syrian protesters bury their dead one day after security forces staged a fierce crackdown on demonstrators. we ll have all of those for you. but we need to start this hour at lambert-st. louis international airport. right now it is closed indefinitely. after an apparent tornado slammed into that airport last night. we are waiting right now for a press conference. it looks like they might be getting under way. we ll keep a close eye here and a listen on this microphone. you know what, he looks like he s about to start talking. let s listen to who is talking here. first of all, let me say when i was here last night and took a tour of the airport, i was stunned by the condition that it was in, the damage that the airport sustained, particularly in the c concourse, and i m back here this morning, and i
the other piece if you take a look around, and for those of you who were here last night and saw the debris and saw all of the rain pouring in and the glass everywhere and look at it ten hours later, we have a lot to be thankful for, the employees, who spent all night here last night, both from the airport, from the county, from the city, from multiple organizations, helping us to get prepared this morning just to at least be able to come and start preparing for reopening. so, we are grateful for those. as you heard the mayor say earlier, we believe, based on where we are now with the assessment, that if the power is back up and running and we ll hear about that shortly that we can be at about a 70% capacity tomorrow. terminal two is fully functional right now. the airfield is fully functional. as far as terminal one, obviously, this is where the majority of the damage has been sustained. but we believe that the a concourse, if power is back up, can be fully functioning tomorrow.