WKHQ On Ice After Tower Falls

• Macdonald Garber Broadcasting Top 40 WKHQ (106 KHQ)/Charlevoix-Traverse City, MI is currently off the air after its 600-foot tower collapsed Sunday evening due to a devastating weekend ice storm that left a reported 90,000 residents in the area without power.

Yesterday morning, and suddenly without a functioning radio station, WKHQ PD/morning host Ashley Z crossed the hall as a guest with Mike In The Morning on Adult Hits sister WZTC (104.5 Bob FM)/Traverse City to update the audience on the situation, saying, “Our broadcast tower is on the ground right now, and it’s lost due to ice. It’s literally dead, so KHQ doesn’t exist at the moment.”

Ironically, the tower had survived Saturday’s ice storm but power was out at the site. Ashley Z explained that she had gone to Home Depot earlier Sunday and purchased a $900 generator to get the tower site running, drove it halfway to Petoskey to meet one of the station owners who took it the rest of the way, and the engineer set it up. So far, so good. Ashley Z added, “I woke up this morning to a call from the engineer saying, ‘your tower fell down last night.'” Listen to the entire conversation posted HERE.

RAMP reached out to a very busy Peter Garber, who was nice enough to send us this Monday evening update along with the photo to the left: “We were able to access the tower site but it was a dangerous scene and our engineers couldn’t stay long enough to assess exactly what led to the collapse. When it’s safe to return to the site, I hope to have more answers in that regard. It pains us not to be on the air right now when our listeners need us most, but we have full confidence in our amazing engineers to restore service as soon as possible, and we thank our incredible on-air staff for continuing to keep the public informed via social media in the face of difficult circumstances.”

Garber continued, “Still a couple of tough days ahead for the entire community. Power is yet to be restored for most of our region and temperatures will be cold tonight. Many people remain trapped in their homes due to the downed trees and power lines. Dozens of radio stations are off the air. We pray for everyone affected and we thank the countless members of the community who have offered both condolences and assistance. We’re saddened by this setback but more thankful than ever to be a part of this amazing community. We will be back and better than ever just as soon as possible.”