Winds Up to 200 m.p.h. Confirmed in Bridgeton

The National Weather Service issued a preliminary ranking of the Good Friday tornado in the St. Louis area as EF4 on the Fujita scale—meaning winds were up to 200 m.p.h. Bridgeton was hardest hit.

By comparison, the New Year's Eve tornado to hit Sunset Hills was ranked as an EF3, with winds up to 165 mph.

EF5 is the top ranking of tornado winds. EF0 is none. The Good Friday tornado was the most destructive here since 1967, officials said.

An estimated 750 homes were damaged in this latest tornado, according to Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, speaking in a press conference 4:15 p.m. Saturday from Lambert International Airport.

National Weather Service official Wes Brown said he surveyed the wide array of damage from the storm. He credited the lack of life-threatening injuries with the 40-minute lead time about the storm from the weather service, that was subsequently carried out in a message to residents through the news media.

Brown pointed to consistent stories of families huddled in basements, the houses damaged, but the residents come up out of the basements "without a scratch."

Brown described it as an "incredible trail of destruction" from New Melle, MO to across the Mississippi into Illinois. Estimates are the tornado was on the ground for about 30 minutes along that route.

At the Saturday press conference, Nixon said President Barack Obama telephoned him to assess what aid was needed. Nixon said it was "absolutely amazing" that there were no fatalities, since the tornado roared through a densely populated area and a major airport.

"It almost feels a little like divine intervention," Nixon admitted.

Ameren CEO Tom Voss said at the height of the outages, 47,000 customers were without power, by 4:30 p.m. Saturday 26,000 were still in the dark.

Airport officials said planes were expected to arrive after 5 p.m. Saturday to deliver passengers, on a limited schedule. Plans are still on to open the airport at 70 percent capacity Easter Sunday morning, if power is restored.

Rain and hail storms were due in the same areas Saturday night.