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HARTINGTON – The construction of Cedar County’s new emergency communications tower has been completed, but work at the site continues.
Kevin Garvin, the county’s director of emergency management and 911 communications coordinator, provided an update on the project to the board of commissioners on June 27.
Jody Koch Construction & Excavation Inc. of rural Hartington began working on the new tower site’s support building on June 26, with the expected completion on this part of the project in September.
“The project is progressing and Jody Koch Construction is working as quickly as they can to keep the project moving,” Garvin said in a follow-up interview.
“The building needs to be completed, including electrical and grounding,” he said. “Once that is completed, we can hang antennas and move equipment.”
The commissioners instructed him to proceed in getting price quotes for the fence that will go around the new tower site.
“We reviewed the cost of the fence from the old site and we discussed that the tower is still progressing through FEMA for possible assistance,” Garvin said. The tower project was part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s declared disaster for the damages caused statewide from the storm that blew the old tower down in May 2022.
“As to the FEMA funding – no idea yet,” Garvin said. “We are in a bit of uncommon territory with FEMA, so we have to let the process work and see what they tell us.”
As for fencing around the new tower site, a rough estimate obtained for FEMA purposes was about $28,000 for a chain-link fence, which would have barbed wire at the top of it.
“There are various things to consider, such as gate size, gate location, materials that could be reused from the old site, etc., that will factor into this,” Garvin said.
He explained the focus right now will be on the new tower site’s support building, making sure that everything is correct so that the contractor can pour the concrete walls.
“This requires lots of attention because if you forget to allow for an opening through the concrete, it becomes very difficult to add it after the fact,” Garvin said.
The new tower is located about two miles north of Hartington, on a one-acre piece of property with a ground elevation estimated at nearly 1,530 feet about sea level.
The process to replace the old tower started more than a year ago in May 2022, after a haboob – a storm with straight-line winds of 80-90 miles per hour sustained for around five minutes or more – caused it to fall over.
The blown-down tower sat on a single pin on a concrete pad near Hartington and was held up by several guy-wires – tensioned cables – on three different sides.
The 300-foot-tall tower – which had been standing since the mid-1970s – fell down because one of the guy-wires failed during the storm.
The new tower is a 400-foot-tall, self-supporting – no guy-wires – structure that is made from galvanized steel.
Equipment at the the old tower site – located in a cattle pasture just north of Hartington – eventually will be moved about a mile to the new tower site.
“We are making preparations to move the equipment, including documentation of where all the wiring is connected, determining what parts if any will be needed, determining what parts we have that can be used at the new site and what we need to order,” Garvin said.
“We are trying to plan and coordinate to minimize the disruption to public safety communications during the move,” he said. “Just because we have to move sites doesn’t mean that emergencies will stop happening.”
