Photo courtesy of Nancy Simpson of KTTS
The National Weather Service says its southwest Missouri’s Fordland weather radio station is once again broadcasting at full strength after a tower that fell last month left one person dead. The weather service was able to move its transmitter to a tower belonging to KWFC radio and RTN – giving it the same broadcast coverage as before.
Steve Runnels is the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Springfield. He says crews were able to get things fixed rather quickly.
“The antenna is at nearly an identical height to the previous site on the Ozark Public Television tower, so we anticipate coverage to reach all previously served sites. During the days that followed the tower failure, I heard realistic expectations for an outage to last six to eight weeks at a minimum. Again with thanks to KWFC and RTN, the NWS was able to cut this to three weeks, and who knows how many lives will be affected as we enter into the worst of our severe weather season,” says Runnels.
A few other workers were on the tower when it fell. They suffered from minor injuries. The cause of the tower collapse is unknown.
By Jason Rima of Missourinet affiliate KTTS in Springfield
