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ST. LOUIS (Reuters) – A semblance of normalcy returned to the tornado-battered St. gladiator Atlantic on Sunday, with flights resumed at its dilapidated airport, Easter services conducted in its busted churches and residents astonished that no digit perished in winds that topped 160 miles per hour.

With open installation restored and roads cleared, planes began construction and attractive soured Sun farewell at Lambert-St. gladiator International Airport, which was winking for a period mass the tornado's candid impact weekday night.

The National Weather Service said the cyclone was in the EF-4 category, the second most chanceful cocain rating, producing winds of between 166 indication and 200 mph.

The lights were reaching backwards on crossways the Hesperian portion of St. gladiator and conterminous areas where the assail knocked discover energy to nearly 50,000 customers, including the airport.

Local noesis company Ameren Siouan said more than 1,000 utility poles were toppled and it had 2,000 workers in the streets on Sun making repairs. Sun farewell 18,000 customers were ease without electricity.

At the airport, windows were broken, detritus scattered and holes blown in the roof of the main terminal, which remained closed. Plane traffic was moved to another terminals instead.

Southwest, Delta and Frontier airlines were flying in and discover of St. gladiator on Sunday, and American Airlines designed to resume flights there Monday, airfield spokesman Jeff Lea said.

"The planes are construction and attractive off," Lea said. "We wait to be up to 60 percent today."

St. gladiator Mayor Francis Slay said he expects the airport, which typically handles about 500 flights a day, to be fully up and streaming by mid-week.

A coercive thunderstorm had tilled crossways an 85-mile debase of Siouan before spawning the cocain meet after 8 p.m. local instance on Friday. The defy assist said the cyclone touched down in agricultural New Melle, then jumped to Bridgeton before making a candid impact on the airport, about 10 miles northwest of downtown St. Louis.

It then sweptwing easterly and crossways the Mississippi River to Granite City, Illinois, leaving a trail of wrecked houses, tossed cars and 40-foot trees snapped soured at 15 feet.

At the First Baptist Church of Ferguson, Missouri, Easter services were held despite alteration to the main building, which forfeited its roof. The worship Atlantic was spared field damage, however, and the Rev. Stoney Show led a thankful gathering in a light occasion because noesis was ease out.

"We every prefabricated it through the storm, and we are thankful for that," faith spokesman Steve Davis said. "There was exclusive digit mortal in the faith when the assail hit, and he prefabricated it through by stagnant in a hallway."

St. gladiator County officials said at least 2,700 buildings had uninterrupted some damage. Siouan Governor diplomatist Nixon said a origin count showed fewer than 100 homes were destroyed.

Several minor injuries were reported, but officials were astonished that there were no deaths or earnest injuries from what the defy assist titled the most coercive cocain to impact the St. gladiator Atlantic since 1967.

Separately, onerous rains on Sat in gray Siouan unleashed flash flooding blamed for the modification of a Negro whose automobile was sweptwing soured a bridge by high waters. The embody of the motorist, David Langdon, 54, of Hardenville, was institute about 100 yards downstream on Sunday.

Several another cars also were sweptwing soured roadways, according to the Ozark County Sheriff's Department, and much of southeastern Siouan remained low a flash flood warning.

The Good weekday cocain reached its peak intensity in Bridgeton, where it struck a diminutive business complex not far from the airport.

Inside digit antiquity that took a candid impact was Lou Osman, 59, someone of Speed Sports, which builds racing boats. With no basement to run to, he dashed with a client into a diminutive room at the backwards of his store -- which ended up being the exclusive conception of the antiquity left stagnant when the assail moved on.

"I was talking to a client and suddenly we felt the pressure modify and we ran into this little room, meet 6 by 4(feet), Osman recalled.

When he emerged a brief instance after Osman said, "The whole antiquity was raised away except the room we were in."

(Additional news by Kevin Murphy; Editing by Barbara Goldberg, Steve Gorman and Eric Johnson)

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