Steven Pfaff with the National Weather Service Office in Wilmington has issued the following update on the outage and damage repair for the Winnabow NOAA tower.
-A statement of work for the cable repair has been completed and the repair process has been well underway. In fact we should be receiving the repair parts for the cable soon with a possible fix in place by the end of the week.
-However, if there is also damage to the antenna (we can not tell within a 100% certainty unless the cable is carrying the broadcast ot the antenna properly) then the outage will be much longer. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the cable fix will get us back on the air with only an abbreviated outage in the end.
-If additional cable rigging is required, along with the antenna repair, then we are back to square one. Similar outages across the country have averaged 4 to 6 months (we would be hoping for a quicker resolution obviously), especially with the start of our severe weather season right around the corner and the NC Statewide Tornado Drill scheduled for March 8th.
-Please keep in mind that we have to follow the government procurement process which includes repair analysis, following the proper bid procedures, and conducting wind load analyses if any different equipment/rigging is needed. In addition, all of this needs to be coordinated with the tower owner and done in a safe manner, especially since the height of the antenna is around 450 feet!
-Our technicians also stress that any repairs are not rushed so that the installation is at a high level of quality. This will ensure that the new equipment can last a long time.
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