The tornado ripped through Lambert Airport's concourse C on April 22, 2011. By the time the one year anniversary comes along, airport officials hope that it will be ready for use.
On Thursday, airport director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge gave a pool of reporters a tour of the steadily improving concourse. Construction workers, caution tape and stacks of equipment decorated the wide corridor. Plywood panels remain boarded along overhangs by the Terminal 1 parking lot, but throughout concourse C all the windows have been fixed. Hamm-Niebruegge estimated that the cost of the tornado damage-- including clean-up, cancelled fights and construction-- totaled upwards $60 million.
"Basically everything in this concourse is being replaced," she said. "Everything was ripped out, from tile to carpeting to gate area, when the tornado came through."
Here are some pictures of the concourse's current state:
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