CHANDLER, Ariz. (KSAZ) - One by one crews removed airplanes damaged or destroyed in last night's microburst at Chandler Municipal Airport.
At least 41 planes in total, 10% of the planes based at Chandler suffered damage in the storm, as powerful winds lifted planes that were chained down, slamming them into other planes, or flipping them upside down. Some of them ended up hundreds of yards from where they were parked.
So what did one insurance agent think when he saw this?
"Shock, I've seen a few storms like this, we've had a couple of airplanes flipped over before, but nothing this significant or this big," said Toby Pulcipher.
Pulcipher specializes in insuring private planes. He says the damage done last night will be in the millions of dollars.
"Yeah, most of them are totalled, all the ones in the back are crumpled up and are going to be totalled pretty significantly," said Pulcipher.
People showed up to take pictures and get an up-close look at the damage. Most of them saw it on TV, but couldn't believe how bad it was in person.
"All the trees that are down along the road it's sad, a lot of work is going to have to be done here," said Pat Young.
"I was shocked, I had seen a couple of Facebook photos of some damage, but I had no idea there was going to be so many planes and so much disruption at our airport," said Kevin Hartke, Chandler Vice-Mayor.
Hartke was among those who stopped by; he was amazed amid all this damage that no one was hurt.
"But obviously there's going to be a lot of unfortunate stories here with folks and their planes," said Kevin Hartke.