Woman Trapped at Lambert Airport Friday Tells Her Story

Jane Klieve simply went to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Friday night to pick up her daughter for an Easter holiday visit, but ended up caught in a devastating storm.

Klieve, a Town and Country resident, said she had no idea the night she had ahead of her as she went to the airport to pick up her daughter Anne. 

Anne, who lives and works in Washington D.C., was on her way to St. Louis when her plane was diverted to Kansas City, MO due to bad weather and tornado warnings.

"I had settled in to do some work at one of the upper level cafes at the airport," Klieve said. She describes the scene around 8:00 p.m. as she waited to hear more about her daughter's flight. "The lights flickered on and off, but never went off completely."

Klieve tells Patch it was raining the entire time, but then the rain got harder.

"All of a sudden someone at the ticket counter yelled for people to take cover. So I quickly gathered my things and raced from the café to the escalator heading downstairs," Klieve said. "Just as I reached the top end of the escalator, the big glass windows on the south wall, where you drop passengers off, just shattered. That whole wall just shattered and the wind came gushing in. I didn't stay to check it out--I raced down the escalator which wasn't working because all the power was out."

Klieve said she made it down to the lower lever where people normally wait to go to their gates. She said people congregated there, and then they were moved by airport staff to shelter areas.

"Which it turns out in airports, the bathrooms are shelters," Klieve said. "We stayed there for a while, came out, and then another storm warning came. Thankfully, another storm did not hit us, though."

Klieve said they were not allowed to leave the area for hours due to the damage.

"There was glass everywhere," Klieve said. She said that a few people were injured. "People's reactions varied from calm to hysterical. It was hardest for people who were waiting for incoming flights and couldn't get information on where people were."

She said the airport generators kept the airport lit a little bit, "Which I really think helped keep people calm, because if it has been completely dark, I think the situation would have been a lot different."

During all of this, Klieve said airport and airline staff were completely calm and in charge.

"They were very on task, but very calm. I was really impressed," Klieve said.

People were finally allowed to leave the airport around 10:15 p.m. Klieve said that was the hardest part of the night.

"There were trees down, power lines down, traffic lights were knocked over. Police officers were directing traffic," Klieve said as she described the scene surrounding the airport. "You could smell natural gas, and so you knew things were disrupted. I didn't really fear for my safety once I was in the basement of the airport, but you couldn't see much from there. When you drive through it all and smelled the natural gas, then you realized how bad it was."

Klieve made it home safely, but without her daughter. Anne was bused from Kansas City to St. Louis and arrived in St. Louis around 4:40 a.m. Saturday. She's now with her family. Klieve tells Patch despite the ordeal, she's just happy everyone is safe.

"It was going to be a very special time together," Klieve said when talking about spending Easter Sunday with her family.