The Johnson County Executive Airport was closed Tuesday from damage sustained in Monday night's storms.
The county communications director, Sharon Watson, thought there may be as many as 45-50 planes with damage.
No one could land at the airport on Tuesday. Parts of the airport hangar also experienced considerable damage.
Survey of damage at Johnson County Executive Airport in Kansas found to be consistent with straight-line winds of 80-85 mph.
— NWS Kansas City (@NWSKansasCity) March 7, 2017
On Tuesday the only people that had access to the hangars at the airport were the civil engineers with Burns and McDonnell working with the county to assess the damage.
The storms impacted eight buildings; five of them are hangars.
Each of the hangers can hold up to 14 planes. Officials said one of the hangers was demolished.
Tuesday afternoon plane owners met with airport officials to discuss the next steps.
Starting Wednesday owners will be assigned a one-hour window to see if their plane sustained any damage.
The uncertainty made a lot of plane owners uneasy.
“My particular airplane it's what they called a home builder; I built it myself and so I can't go out and buy a new one of it’s trashed, but I'm hoping is that they're right and the hanger didn’t have any damage and everything will be hunky dory but I'm afraid that--you never know--with winds that strong with that extensive amount of damage something may have fallen on it,” Brian Von Bevern, a plane owner, said.
He said he has insurance but that doesn’t cover the 2,500 hours he spent building his plane.
One Johnson County commissioner is a pilot, and he learned to fly at the JoCo airport. Commissioner Mike Brown said the county owns the hangars, not the planes inside. Brown said the airport is very important for the county's economy.
"It's a debris field to the east of the hangers. Some materials ripped off the roof, some pieces flipped over the fence into private residential yards on the other side of the air field boundary. Planes, tool boxes, it's just chaos," Brown said.
Damage @ #joco airport ? in daylight shows serious damage to hangar, tipped over planes ?? & broken ? windows. #wx #ks @NWS @41actionnews pic.twitter.com/8LUp5fAJbq
— Belinda Post (@Belinda_Post) March 7, 2017
"The planes are tilted over or have sustained some damage, severity depending on where they were. Some are in a different location than when the storm went through," explained Watson.
Of course, damage in Johnson County spread beyond the airport.
One hard-hit area was near 143rd and Mission in Leawood.
That's where Mehal Patel came home to overturned patio furniture, a broken children's play set and a giant hole in his roof.
"I felt something was going on. I was able to see chairs flying in and out on the drive way. I told my wife we should go back in the house," said Patel.
He said he will contact his insurance agent next. He says he's grateful his family and neighbors are okay.
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Belinda Post can be reached at belinda.post@kshb.com.
