[BC] Towers down in St. Luois

[Mike McCarthy]

Two stations lost three towers this past week in what many locals call the 
worst storms ever to hit the metro.

KTRS (550---formerly KSD) lost two 450 ft. Blaw Knox towers and WIL (1430) 
lost one...model unknown.

Like the lost tower in Springfield, IL. earlier this spring, the failure 
point of the KTRS towers was the LAPP base insulator.  Further, one comment 
was made about how the insulators were cracked and have been for sometime.

It seems that most of the self-supporting towers failing in the past couple 
years have been older Blaw-Knox sticks. Hmmm.

Case in point....A local Chicago station which used three 500+ ft. 
Blaw-Knox towers performed an analysis on them last year.  They're now down 
(dismantled) and replaced by new steel.  They were trimmed back to 300 ft. 
shortly following the analysis.

Bottom line...self supporting towers need proper care too.  They simply 
don't show problems like guyed towers...until it's too late.

One other note on the STL storms....a tower crew working on the 1100 ft. 
community tower just south of downtown replacing an antenna ended the day 
not long before the storms hit.  One observer noted that had they not come 
down when they did by simply ending their day, there is no way they could 
have made it down, nor survived the storms 90 MPH winds, hail, and driving 
rain while on the tower.  The storms approached THAT fast...from a 
direction rarely seen...the NE.

As a matter standing policy for our group, if there is a chance of 
thunderstorms or severe weather, either I or someone is monitoring the SPC 
web page and local radar hourly mid-day through then end of the day's work. 
We doing so more often if there are watches issued and/or any storm 
activity noted on radar.  This is where having IP connectivity/internet 
access at the TX could save a life...or a few.

MM