Work continues on Cedar County's new communications tower site

HARTINGTON – Work continues on the site of Cedar County's new emergency communications tower, which will replace the one that was blown down more than a year ago.

Kevin Garvin, the county's director of emergency management and 911 communications coordinator, provided an update on the project May 23 to the board of commissioners.

The installation of the tower's foundation by Mid-America Drilling Corp., Oakland, Iowa, was finished in mid-April, while the tower itself was delivered May 15 to the rural Hartington site it will call home.

Sabre Industries Inc. of Sioux City, Iowa, manufactured the tower and Tower Systems of Watertown, S.D., is constructing it.

'Once they got all the trucks unloaded and components inventoried, they started assembly/construction on May 16, 2023,' Garvin said in a follow-up interview.

'As to progress, the crew has hit a few weather delays,' he said. 'The wind speed must be under 21 miles per hour for them to safely work at this phase of construction.'

The new tower will be located about two miles north of Hartington, on a one-acre piece of property with a ground elevation estimated at nearly 1,530 feet above sea level.

Garvin listed the work that is left to be done on the project – the construction of the tower and new support building, as well as the mounting of the antennas.

'The support building can’t be started until the tower crew has finished their work,' Garvin said. 'The anticipated timeline is now a September completion for everything. The project is behind the original timeline.'

Jody Koch Construction & Excavation Inc. of rural Hartington will be the contractor responsible for the new support building, with this part of the project estimated to take about eight weeks to complete.

'It is expected to start once the tower is completely constructed,' Garvin said, noting the construction of the tower is estimated to be completed by the middle of June.

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 will be a 400-foot-tall, self-supporting – no guy-wires – structure that will be made from galvanized steel.

The old tower site – located in a cattle pasture just north of Hartington and about a mile from the new tower site – is owned by Jeff and Mary Leise of Hartington, not the county.

'At the old site, we are working on getting things ready for the move – double-checking and documenting the technical items so that when we move, up-to-date documentation of the wiring is available,' Garvin said.

'Our only option at this time with the old (support) building is to demolish it,' he said. 'We must vacate the (old tower) property once the new tower is up and return it to its 'pre-tower' condition.'