Damage to the airport's glass-enclosed air-traffic-control tower included the shattering of its large windows. Repairs to the tower, built nearly a half-century ago and remodeled in the 70's with seismic braces, are estimated to run $2 million. Engineers who inspected the tower say the quake damage was cosmetic in nature, not structural. Nonetheless, the effects of the event were significant enough to render the tower non-operational.

Until repairs can be completed, which is expected to be in about 60 days, Sea-Tac is running air-traffic control operations from a temporary facility, which appears to be working out just fine. The Federal Aviation Administration announced yesterday that the flow of air traffic is close to normal: about 45 arrivals and departures each hour. A new tower is in the midst of construction, but completion of that structure is not anticipated until sometime in 2004. An airport spokesperson tells GlobeSt that many of the images broadcast across national television, as it attempted to depict the effects of the quake, were actually of that incomplete tower.

While tower damage has received most of the attention, it is the airport's north satellite that sustained the most ruin from ruptured water pipes in the ceiling. Funds for the repairs will come from insurance, with the deductible being paid by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or other federal agencies.