Tower project won’t be completed this year

HARTINGTON – Work at Cedar County’s new emergency communications tower site will not be completely finished this year.

Kevin Garvin, the county’s director of emergency management and 911 communications coordinator, noted work at the new tower site is nearly done, but the last of it will not happen until next year.

“I anticipate that it will be spring 2024 before we can get the landscaping done and have the project completely as we need it, but the site is useable,” Garvin said. “While we moved in just as soon as we could, the Minion

site is not completely finished.”

Other than the landscaping, two of the other major items that have to be finished yet at the new tower site are: - Completing the grounding both internally and externally to protect equipment from damage caused by things like lightening.

- Installing ice protection for the new support building’s roof and HVAC – heating, ventilation and air conditioning – system.

The process of moving equipment from the old tower site, on the north edge of Hartington, to the new tower site, located about two miles north of the community, took place during the span of a few hours on Oct. 9.

“Cedar County moved critical communications to its home at our new tower site,” Garvin said. “A team of people descended upon Hartington and worked as a team for the day to make the move to our new site possible, keeping the off-air time to a minimum.

“Mission-critical emergency equipment was moved first, while backup systems remained operational at the old site,” he said. “Once the critical equipment was on the air, the backup systems were moved later in the day.”

The old tower site’s support building was demolished on Oct. 23 by the Cedar County Roads Department.

The process to replace the old tower – used for public safety communications – started in May 2022 after a storm with straight-line winds of 80-90 miles per hour caused the structure to fall over.

The 300-foot-tall tower that was blown down sat on a single pin on a concrete pad and was held up by several guy-wires – tensioned cables – on three different sides.

The old 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.