In the wake of the weekend’s devastating tornado in St. Louis, the Internet has picked up a fairly terrifying surveillance video showing the twister ripping through a concourse at  Lambert International Airport. The video shows frantic visitors and employees running  for cover as the facility gives way to the high winds.

The massive tornado blazed a path of destruction 22 miles long, tearing through Concourse C of the airport, opening up a hole in the ceiling, and smashing hundreds of its glass windows. Though nearly 100 homes were destroyed and thousands damaged in Friday’s storm, the tornado claimed no fatalities—something that locals are hailing a miracle, with such a powerful weather event moving through a densely populated city. And incredibly, Lambert airport has reopened and flights began departing yesterday.

My sister was in St. Louis at the time of this incident.  Thank God she and everyone else in St. Louis stayed safe !

In the video below, you can see TSA agents running for the bathroom as debris begins flying through the concourse:

A Nation Seeks Refuge... But There Is Nowhere To Go

The already devastated nation of Japan was hit by not one, but two more major aftershocks yesterday, both measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale.  And as if that wasn’t enough for Japan to have to endure in a day, the government raised the level of their looming Nuclear crisis to equal that of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, considered the worst in history.  With all that is yet to come, the disaster which resulted from damage to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant as a result of the March 11th 9.0 Earthquake and subsequent Tsunami, will easily be the worst Nuclear disaster in World History.  What makes matters worse, is the government has expanded its restricted area, and the tap water, food, soil, air and seawater continues to be contaminated.

World financial markets have already begun to take a beating this morning as well on the recent news, with Japan’s stock market droppping the most since the original quake happened just a month ago.

Wanna get away? I think Southwest is ready to book a flight outta here

See… This is why I don’t like to fly

Southwest Airlines cancelled over 300 flights for a 2nd day in a row as it continued to inspect almost 80 planes they’ve grounded for damage similar to that of the 737 that had to make an emergency landing in Yuma, Arizona yesterday. Mechanics discovered a tear along the “lap joint” which showed extensive cracking that was undiscovered in previous maintenance checks. This definitely doesn’t sound good for Southwest’s future business. In fact, I bet a lot of people are going to sell short their stock or throw money into some put options.

The plane in yesterday’s emergency landing had 118 passengers, many of whom felt the end was near for them, prompting them to send text messages to loved ones like “Our plane is going down! I love you”. I would hate to be on a plane in a situation like that.

The plane originally tried to make an emergency landing in Phoenix, but decided to divert to Yuma as the closest suitable airport. Oxygen masks fell and the cabin lost pressure at just around 18 minutes into the flight after departing from Phoenix, on its way to Sacramento, California.

A hole ripped through the cabin of a Southwest Airlines plane as shown in this photo provided by passenger Christine Ziegler

Thankfully no serious injuries were reported and nobody came close to losing their lives. Let’s all be thankful that nobody lost their lives in this, and that Southwest was able prevent any serious disasters. The NTSB and Boeing will oversee repair work on the plane in Yuma, Arizona.