40M tower falls during Tropical Storm Isabel

18 Sept 2003 - Tropical storm Isabel wipes out 40M tower. The gusting high winds twisted the quadruple-guyed, 178 foot tall rotating tower into the ground, demolishing the two 48-foot boom, 4 element 40M full size yagis. Not a single piece of the yagis are salvagable. About 100 feet of the tower may be salvagable. Electricity is lost to the entire area. Paul runs the house on the 25KW backup generator which runs off of a large tank of propane.

20 Sept 2003 - Paul got a lot of work done. K7SV and NR4M came down and they got a lot done, thank you Larry and Steve. They have the tower almost completely disassembled. The only pieces he needs more of will be legs. Paul thinks he knows where they can be obtained.

Paul put the rotator back up on its pad as symbol. A symbol that something big will be put back on top of it.

Start thinking about what next to put up. Tossing around the idea of a 3-high stack of 3 element 42' boom 40M yagis on a 200 foot rotating tower. Paul is a guy who keeps thinking, not letting any situation get him down long.

21 Sept 2003 - Paul is still without power or internet service. He is still running on his backup generator for 3 days straight, but is still without internet services. After service is restored, he will email me pictures and I will post them on a page. Check back here for updates.

22 Sept 2003 - Power restored. Power was restored around midnight, after the generator has run for 82 hours straight. Bruce, W3BP came over and they finished all the clean up and hauled the Aluminum to the scrap dealer.

Paul has a Crane scheduled for Thrusday noon. Henry's Tower service will assist. They are rescuing the 20M beam (fixed SE mult antenna) before it falls. They will put it and the spare 40M beam (full size 3 element) on the Mult tower.

The internet is still not up but Paul now has a secondary number and is logging into Tappahannock now.

Paul says, "I have so much work to do, but I am smiling."

23 Sept 2003 - Crane cancelled. It has rained an additional 3 inches, scrubbing the crane for this week. There has been a total of about 15 inches of rain in the last 2.5 weeks.