Update 11/3 4:00 pm – Repairs have been completed to the Elephant tower site power connection. Services are being restored but may experience intermittent outages over the weekend. Please let us know (translator@pitkincounty.com) if any television or FM radio stations are not working properly.
The Elephant communications tower site experienced a power failure in the early morning hours of Friday November 3rd. The on-site backup generator started and worked as designed, supplying emergency power to public safety radio and broadband internet systems at the site. When commercial power fails, the on-site generator is not able to supply power to television or FM radio systems due to the significant amount of energy those systems use.
After all attempts to remotely troubleshoot the power issue were exhausted, the Telecommunications team requested helicopter assistance from Mountain Blade Runner based out of Montrose. Thankfully, they had a ship and pilot available, weather was good for flying and the pilot was familiar with this challenging-to-access tower site. The team quickly mobilized and flew up to the site and discovered that an animal – likely a bear – had damaged a primary power cable and a disconnect switch. Field repairs were carefully made to bring the site fully back online. All systems on-site were inspected and no other damage was found. The team was out of the field by mid-afternoon.
Pitkin County Telecommunications would like to thank Mountain Blade Runner for the expert flying, and the Carbondale & Rural Fire Protection District for the use of their parking lot as a landing zone for this mission.
Some of you may be wondering why there is not a larger generator at Elephant. First, this site is fully reliant on helicopters to transport materials and personnel to and from the mountaintop. A generator large enough to supply power to the entire site including Television and FM radio systems would have required a upgrade to the existing generator, a larger structure to house it and a larger helicopter to transport both when the site was rebuilt. The team chose to continue using the generator at the site prior to reconstruction, primarily due to space constraints on the ridge. Second, all propane for the generator at Elephant must be restocked via helicopter which requires the use of 80 pound cylinders, which are then coupled together via a piping manifold on site. A larger generator would require both many more of these cylinders as it would consume more fuel, as well as much more space to safely store them. Along the ridge where the site is located, space is very constrained so a larger shelter, larger generator and more propane tanks are not feasible.
