The day the TV towers fell

[C Body Bob]

December 1989 2 of the 3 TV towers that served the Raleigh-Durham market came crashing down after a severe ice storm. My dad was an electrical engineer for Capital Broadcasting Company. The owner of the tallest tower that fell & worked for the company for 32 years. He was employed at a site called the Transmiter. It was the power generator & signal producer. And this is where the tower for the TV station WRAL (5) was located. About 15 miles east of Raleigh, NC near the small town of Clayton, NC. The towers would ice up in the winter time even during a mild storm due to the humid thin air. Over the years my dad had to deal with large chunks of ice falling off the towers & the long large guide wires. He also dealt with thunder storms that had lightening deliver direct hits on the tower & the building. He can telll you some stories of dealing with both. That fateful day in December was a Sunday morning. We had a very bad ice storm (Raleigh is known for its ice storms) come through on Friday & sleet & freezing rain that lasted well into Saturday. My dad just like the veteran he was had a bad feeling about this one. Sunday morning he called out to the Transmitter to check in with a reativly new employee who was new to this. The guy told my dad that that bowling ball size ice chunks where falling rapidly on the roof of the building & all around as the sun had come out & the temp went above freezing. Dad told him to get out now for his safety & go way out to the road that leads into the property. All 3 TV stations serving that market where in that area about 2 mile radius so each could easily be seen. My dad at home began monitoring all 3. About 1 hour later channel 28's signal went out. He quickly switched to the other two & they where still broadcasting. He knew the 28 tower had fallen & it had. The fire department had been called & they where at the entry road with the employee from #5 & all of them witnessed the fall of the 28 tower. The fire department hurried over & the two employees had already abandoned the building & where safe. And then just that quick only minutes later dad watched his satiation channel 5's signal go dead. The 5 year old 2000 ft tower had fallen. At that time the second biggest tower in the country was no longer standing. My dad got in his pick up & despite the 5-6 inches of ice on the roads he headed out to the site. 30 miles of very bad driving conditions. Before he got there the third tower channel 11 buckled, but for some reason didn't fall. Equipment was hanging/dangling from it & ice falling like a meterior shower. Although badly damaged the 11 tower held. No one was injured. Two towers fell & 2 Transmitter buildings completely destroyed. Here are some pics of my dads station's original 1100 ft tower going up in the early 60's & the 5 year old 2000 footer that fell. I spent a lot of my childhood in the summer months out there despite how freaking dangerous that place was.

 

[C Body Bob]

These are pictures taken several days after the collapse of two 2000-foot towers for WRAL-TV and WPTF-TV, near Raleigh NC, in December 1989. A third 2000-foot tower in the same vicinity, used by WTVD-TV, was damaged but did not collapse.

Both towers were brought down by uneven melting of ice coatings left by an ice storm a few days earlier. It's thought that when the sun came up after several cloudy days, it warmed the ice on the eastern guy wires of both towers. The guys began to shed the ice and as it fell off, it generated a "gallop" which resulted in guy failure, and tower collapse shortly thereafter. Both towers fell within about 30 minutes of each other, shortly after sunrise.

WRAL-TV and co-owned WRAL-FM were knocked off the air for several hours, as neither had an auxiliary tower. WRAL-TV was able to make arrangements with a Fayetteville UHF station, WKFT, to rebroadcast their signal. WRAL-FM was able to put up a temporary signal using a borrowed FM antenna and a crane, using their RPU equipment for an STL.

WPTF-TV and co-owned WQDR-FM both had auxiliary facilities at an older 1200-foot tower in the market.

 

[C Body Bob]

Pics of the 2nd tower that was built in the mid 80's as the area grew the tv station wanted to reach more people. It was built right along side the old tower. I was a teen & went out there a lot to watch the Tower riggers & steelmen construct it. The pretty lady on the left looks like a lady that had a tv show about young professional people in the Raleigh-Durham area. It was the first time a show like that had been done. It was a big success for several years. I have no idea who the other 4 gentlemen are. RCA was a big investor in Capital Broadcasting Co. so perhaps they are with them.

 

[C Body Bob]

And the mangled fallen tower

 

[C Body Bob]

The destroyed Transmiter building. One of the first things my dad & the other employees who made it out there that day was to cover the millions of dollars in Broadcasting equipment with tarp untill they could get a crane & flatbed truck into have it safely moved

 

[C Body Bob]

And the new building that was finally completed in 1993 along with a new 2200 foot tower that has ice melting wires that help slow down the accumilation of ice buildup & damper's on the guide wires a big improvement to assist with strong winds & ice build up on the guide wires. Also notice the V shape of the roof to deflect the ice chunks & the roof also has slits to break the ice up. All these new improvements helped as the tower put up in 92/3 is still standing as is the other 2 competitors towers that also where raised & improved

 

[C Body Bob]

I took dad out there the day after Thanksgiven 11/26/2016. Here is a pic of him standing next to the new improved guide wire anchor. And one of the old anchors I believe is a reminder of tower 2 that failed. There are several old anchors scattered about the property

 

[C Body Bob]

Tower road that leads to the main building. And my dad standing by the new state of the art ever improving building

 

[C Body Bob]

Times have changed. Lots of Satellite dishes on the property now. And the two competitors towers are still just up the road & easy to get to.

 

[69CoronetRT]

Cool story. Thanks for sharing.

 

[C Body Bob]

My pleasure

 

[65FuryPaceCar]

Dry interesting story. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Fury440]

I really enjoyed the read, brought back memories from the 60's when I had to climb a tower - much shorter than those thank the Lord. Scared the hell out of me even though I had a safety line. Never again.

 

[Wildaugust]

Cool story! Thanks

It actually brought back a memory of what happened here in March 1983, although here it was only the tower that was lost. An FM station in Brandon, KX-96, had been advertising for at least a week that something was coming to Brandon. They were telling everyone to tune in at 6:00 am Wednesday, funny how I remember this. Being curious and having to get up anyway, I set my clock radio to 96.1 even though I wasn't into their elevator music format. Well, they gave the 6:00 am news and then played Street Of Dreams by Rainbow, followed with an announcement that they were now "Rock FM KX-96". I listened to them as I had my coffee and breakfast and was getting into their new format, when suddenly the radio went silent. This was about 6:30. It was horrible outside as we were having an ice storm. I found some other station to listen to and later heard on the news that the storm had caused several TV towers in North Dakota including KXMC-TV Minot which we used to be able to get, CKX-TV Brandon in Manitoba which also had KX-96 FM on it and at least one tower in Saskatchewan to fall. The CKX tower had antennas for two TV channels and three FM stations on it and was the tallest tower in Manitoba at 1320 feet tall. For some reason, the CKND-TV tower north of Brandon did not fall so, we still had one local channel to watch. If I'm not mistaken, that tower is 1280 feet tall. Anyway, it took about three weeks for them to put up a temporary tower while they worked at replacing the fallen tower with an identical one. That took a few months. I guess I remember this because I was an avid listener to FM rock stations at the time and the timing of this event just seemed so bizarre. I mean, we all just tuned in to find a new rock station which then gets knocked off the air for three weeks no more than half an hour later.

 

[C Body Bob]

Yes ice is very heavy & has brought down many structures over the years. The engineers have learned better ways to cope with it. What happened here caused a lot of stress for my dad. For 2/3 years he was working 12-14 hour days as they where rebuilding everything. And every big shot in the TV & tower industry came down to see the first 2000 foot tower to fail. Dad had to deal with a lot of those folks. Dad retired shortly after they got it all completed & his supervisor died of a heart attack just a few years later. He was in his mid 60's. It truly was super stressful for those involved.

 

[clhyer]

Cool story,
C

 

[mrfury68]

Very cool story. I would rather deal with a foot of snow than a coating of ice any day.

 

[cantflip]

I bet that place was scary as hell when the weather was bad... Your dad must have had a number of scary events there. Thank you for sharing this Bob.

 

[C Body Bob]

The old original tower built in the 60's had a hugh copper pipe comming off the bottom & went deep into the ground. Dad always told me it was for lightning strikes. The old Transmitter had sections. And had tubes just like the old TV's. Some where HUGH as watermelons. There was a locked glass door to keep anyone from straying in there. When a tube went bad usually after a direct hit from lightening the person on duty would have to shut down that section of the transmitter & replace the tube manually. Dad would take me back there & shut the lights off. That place in the dark looked like something in a Hollywood movie. Over the years the technology allowed much improved equiptment & was always being updated. It had the noisy hum of electricity throughout the entire building. And large copper pipes running & chrissrossing all across the ceiling.

 

[C Body Bob]

Dad told me something I didn't know. The TV station had just recently purchased a news helicopter. When brass at the Stuido in Raleigh where told of the hugh ice chunks falling & likely damage they sent the chopper out to do a live shot. The chopper had arrived just in time & was filming the tower when it fell. They hadn't gone live yet on air, but where filming. Dad said they gave him a copy of that film. He said I've got it somewhere. I said pop you got to be kidding me. He has never mentioned that to me before & now may have lost that footage as he has moved twice since that happened. If he finds it I'll see if I can get it uploaded somehow.