The roof of the KATV transmitter site is still standing. The work lights around the tower are off.
Nothing can be removed from the site until insurance adjustors check every guy wire and look at what happened to it to collapse.
"Apparently the top of the temporary jack cable we had up top pulled out of the clamps at the anchor and let the top (of the tower) bend over. That's what started the whole thing," says President of Structual Syetems Technology Fred Purdy.
A lot of destruction but only one minor injury.
At the top of the 2033 foot KATV tower, the antenna, lay just a few hundred feet from the tower site.
"Coming down the interstate today and rounding that curve and not seeing it, it just kind of put a hole in my belly," says KATV General Manager Dale Nicholson.
And a hole in the transmitter site for AETN, knocking two Little Rock television stations off the air. Inside the AETN transmitter building, the clock on the wall stopped at 12:46pm, an office for engineers was destroyed.
A four man crew was attempting to change a guy wire at the top of the 43 year old tower.
"We were doing everything by the book," Purdy says. "the rigging should have been safe," said Purdy.
Investigators worked to find out why it happened while KATV and AETN worked to get back on the air.
"Had this happened ten years ago, there is no way we could have supplied service tonight," Nicholson said. "so I guess we should all be grateful that times have changed and the tower is not as necessary as it was ten years ago."
KATV and AETN say they have been able to restore signal to approx 75% of the households.
