[TowerTalk] Fall Zones

[Wilson Lamb]

I had to laugh when I saw this in a post this morning:  

" The argument is based on the assumption that the tower would be cranked down during a forecast of extreme weather such s a hurricane/tropical storm."

When I went to interview a car towing  guy for potentially using his rollback wrecker to move an 89' crankup for a friend, I asked if he had ever done it before.
Rather than answer, he said "Look around the corner of the building."  Sure enough, there lay the base section of a big crankup.
His explanation was "...guy had a tall tower with an anemometer to control a winch to lower it if a high wind came."
You know the rest; wind did, anemometer didn't, winch didn't, tower fell.
I don't know if the system failed or the wind came too quickly, but I think microbursts can come quite suddenly, even if the lowering system actually works.
Bottom line:  He was given the job and his 19' rollback never even grunted.  The 20 mile trip and unloading were non events.  Four hours, $300.
WL