Weather one factor in tower demolition delay

DECO Demolition and Excavation announced Thursday that the microwave AT&T tower located on Judson Street between Wall and First streets will finally be coming down in about a week.(Angelique McNaughton/Tribune)

Employees with DECO Demolition and Excavation announced on Thursday an end is finally in sight for the demolition of the microwave AT&T tower located on Judson Street between Wall and First streets in Fort Scott.

After being more than three weeks behind schedule, Roger Randall, the senior estimator and project manager with the Kansas City-based company, said the last half of the tower will "hopefully" be down in about a week.

"We're hoping to be totally done a week from today," Randall said on Thursday.

He said the rest of the removal is the "easy part."

DECO began the process of taking down the tower at the end of February. Early estimates said the tower would be completely down in about three weeks.

Now three weeks past the original date of completion, Randall said multiple factors contributed to the delay of the tower's dismantling. But Randall said there were two major factors that put the crew behind.

"Weather, weather, weather, weather was one of them," Randall said referring to recent heavy rains and strong winds in March that affected the Fort Scott area. "And some differences in the construction plans were the other. Basically as we cut up the thing it wasn't built the way it was represented and that caused some delays."

Brett Kisner, DECO field supervisor and operator, said the differences in the tower's construction caused the company to completely change its methods of bringing it down.

In an effort to keep up the pace of removal, employees with the demolition crew have been working 12-hour days, five days a week.