Washington County will buy rebuilt emergency comms tower

WELLMAN — A phone tower housing emergency communications equipment for Washington County destroyed by a tornado in Wellman last year will be rebuilt by Wellman Telephone Company, and promptly sold to Washington County.

The deal comes around a year after a storm ripped through the western edge of the small town, where it leveled a handful of rural homes, farm buildings and a grain elevator as it carved through the countryside.

Several county officials said they were frustrated by the delay, as tornado season returns to Iowa.

“They’re not going to order this tower until the agreement is signed, and … we’re coming up on a year, and I think it’s pretty critical,” Washington County Sheriff Jared Schneider said. “Even once we get the purchase agreement signed, how many months out are we before we have a completed project anyway … This is emergency communication that we’re talking about here.”

Several factors are at play in that long wait time.

County officials involved in negotiations said it was a hassle determining where exactly to build the tower, and whether insurance would cover reconstruction at a different location. Once they opted to rebuild on the same lot, negotiators haggled over whether the company would maintain ownership of the structure, or sell it to the county, using proceeds to build another one elsewhere.

Once settled upon the latter, government decision-makers had to figure out how to pay for a roughly $665,000 phone tower, eventually settling on a bond issue, for which Washington County will hold a public hearing on April 2. Washington County previously paid $400 a month to rent space for its equipment on the tower.

The county has also signed a 25-year lease, with an annual $1 payment to the telephone company for the land the tower will occupy.

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Emergency management officials say their communication system is still up and running, designed with redundancy in mind to remain fully functional even if one tower went down. Still, previous estimates said coverage was spotty at best in 5-10% of the county without a functioning relay in Wellman.

Officials say a second tower’s loss, however, could be devastating for emergency response capabilities.

“We’re operating on a backup system which was designed to account for the loss of one tower in the system,” County Supervisor Jack Seward Jr. said. “But if we lose one more tower, we don’t have any backup to the backup.”

Board of Supervisors Chair Richard Young said the county should look into non-lease options for its other emergency communication towers, several of which are owned by private entities who lease out space on the structures.

“I think we’re learning a very valuable lesson here, by us not owning our own towers,” he said. “We’re relying on rental of towers that we should not be. We should be owning our own towers for this system … it makes our system very vulnerable.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com