Bemidji Regional Airport Assesses Damage to Facility After June 21 Storm

When the storm this past weekend started to make its way through Beltrami County, the Bemidji Regional Airport reported wind speeds at 106 mph, leaving officials at the airport worried about possible damages to the facility.

“There’s not much protecting us out here at the airport,” said Kyle Christiansen, the airport’s executive director. “There are no lines of trees, so these buildings were exposed to all [of those] winds.”

Christiansen was out of town when the storm passed through early Saturday morning. Once he returned on Monday, he couldn’t believe what he was witnessing.

“It was pretty shocking,” he said. “As I got closer to Bemidji, it was a pretty rapid change and the damage as we got closer and closer to town and getting out to the airport, seeing a lot of stuff that was obviously different than when I left town.”

Christiansen then made his way back to the airport to assess the damages there, where he found parts of roofing along the parking lot.

“Some private hangars, some airport-owned facilities; so this hangar behind us is completely destroyed,” he said. “Our maintenance building had some damage to the roof. Pretty much every building has some sort of damage.”

Thankfully, vehicles that were in the parking lot were left relatively undamaged outside of a few scratches to a couple of cars. However, Christiansen couldn’t say the same for some planes at the airport.

“We had maybe a handful of airplanes that were damaged,” said Christiansen. “Two had collapsed landing gears, some other planes were king of jostled around in the wind and collided. At least two aircraft that were in hangars were damaged by the hangar, by either fully or partially collapsing [on top of them].”

Along with most homes and businesses in the region, the airport also lost power due to the storm, and airport staff were having a hard time turning it back on due to generator malfunctions.

“We were without power for the better part of two days,” Christiansen elaborated. “Our backup generator was having issues, so we had to cancel some flights because we had no power at all. The power’s back on now, and we’re looking into the issues with the generator to figure out why it wasn’t working all day.”

Power is now restored to the airport and everything seems to be returning to the usual routine. Christiansen says the damage to the city of Bemidji is so extensive that it is almost unrecognizable, but he is thankful the airport escaped with just minor damage.

“It’s kind of surprising there wasn’t more damage,” he added.

As of now, flights are running back on time at the Bemidji Regional Airport. Airport officials say that if you have any questions about flight scheduling or other matters, you should check with Delta Airlines.