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May 9, 2009

<img src="http://www.joplinglobeonline.com/images/zope/extra.gif" border=0>TV tower falls, narrowly missing house<font color="#ff0000"> w/ storm-damage videos</font>

By Derek Spellman

dspellman@joplinglobe.com

Dianna Woodward says it was the hand of God. Literally.

At about 7:40 a.m. Friday, fierce winds sent part of KSNF’s telecommunication tower hurtling toward her next-door neighbor’s house.

Woodward, 3038 W. 16th St., had lost power several minutes earlier when she heard a shattering boom, “like a huge rock hit the ground,” and the ground shuddered.

The tower seemed to have folded inward sometime during its descent, she said. The crumpled tower that fell on neighbor Keith Johnston’s property, 3042 W. 16th St., pulverized both his truck and the driveway in which it was parked.

The twisted tower fell just short of the house itself though. Johnston’s wife and two children were unharmed.

“I said it was the hand of the God,” Woodward said, and then pointed to a small stone angel in her debris-strewn front yard. “She was watching over us.”

Keith Johnston said he was at work when the tower collapsed. His wife, he told the Globe, had been debating about whether to seek shelter in the bathroom when Friday’s storm started to intensify.

‘Eerie feeling’

An “eerie feeling,” he said, made her opt instead for a closet in the bedroom.

It turned out to be a good decision. A pulley, apparently connected to the tower, gouged a hole in the roof and then through the bathroom ceiling.







Johnston said the family was lucky the tower landed where it did.

“Fifty more feet and it would have gotten my wife and kids,” he said.

John Hoffman, KSNF’s general manager, said it was still not known what exactly caused the tower to fall as of late Friday afternoon. Winds in excess of 85 mph surged across the Tri-State Area.

Hoffman did say that crews had been working on the tower to finish the conversion to digital. Some equipment was attached to the tower so crews could do that work. The station had hoped that work would be completed by today.

“I’m not 100 percent sure why the tower came down,” Hoffman said. “We have not had that conversation yet with the tower crews.”





Hoffman was not sure what wind speed the tower could withstand, although he did say it was tested and maintained, and annually inspected in accordance with the Federal Communications Commission regulations.

A phone message left for the FCC late Friday afternoon as to what those standards are was not immediately returned.

The tower crews had advised the station at about 7 a.m. that the tower could fall, prompting the station to evacuate its personnel. The tower fell at about 7:40 a.m.

Still standing

Hoffman said between 200 and 300 feet of the tower is still standing.

While part of the tower fell near Johnston’s house, the other part fell on the station building itself, Hoffman said. The roof over the station’s studio collapsed, while the maintenance room was damaged.

Both KSNF and its sister station, KODE, were not broadcasting as of early Friday night, although Hoffman said KODE would be broadcasting again once power was restored.

KSNF will likely remain off the air for a few days. Company engineers are to visit the station this weekend to assess damage and determine the station’s options. Updates will be provided via KODE and the two stations’ Web site.

‘Just thankful’

Woodward, meanwhile, said she “was just thankful” that no one was injured.

Debris, perhaps from either the tower or Johnston’s damaged home, or both, had smashed windows in all three vehicles parked in her driveway. In one car, flying debris had cut a hole through the hood. Stout steel cables connected to the tower had whipped across her property, cut a groove across her back yard and possibly dented the rim of her pool. Power lines also had been torn down by the cable.

As onlookers made their way to the tower remains Friday, Woodward taped plastic sheets over the broken car windows to shut out the rain. Debris was scattered over her yard. Idle power lines and cables snaked over her fence and into the back yard.

“It was bad, but no one got hurt,” she said.





Tall tower

The tower had measured a little more than 1,000 feet in height.

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