Vankleek Hill company secures CTV tower

When CTV's Ottawa newsroom went up in flames on Sunday, February 7, officials turned to a Vankleek Hill-based company to make sure the tower on the building's roof didn't collapse and cause further damage.

Rcomm Radio president John Russell told The Review he received a call at about 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, concerning the stability of the CJOH-TV transmission tower atop the building at 1500 Merivale Road. Ottawa Fire Services had decided that nobody would be allowed into the building, including investigators, until the tower was secured.

Russell was asked to make an assessment and, upon arrival, found that one of the tower's guy wires was anchored to an I-beam on the roof - directly above the newsroom where the fire was most intense.

"There was a small chance that the tower could fall and that was enough for us," said Russell.
He rushed back to his shop in Vankleek Hill to fabricate a new anchor and verify if he had any of the special cabling required to replace the fire-damaged guy wire.

Miraculously, added Russell, he had the right length of exactly the right kind of cable in stock. An order for that type of cable would normally take about five weeks to fill, he said; luckily, it was on hand for another installation.

Early Monday morning, Russell was back on site at the CTV building with his crew and a tall crane. By 7 p.m. that evening, the new guy wire was in place and re-anchored and the tower stabilized.

"We worked until we had made the tower 100 per cent stable again. That meant that other crews could remove the HVAC equipment off of the roof and make the building safe enough for the fire inspectors to start their work," concluded Russell.

Damages to the newsroom were estimated at more than $2.5 million, according to the network. It took 70 firefighters and 18 fire trucks to control the fire, which began at 4:30 a.m. Sunday morning.

The cause of the fire is yet unknown, and there were no injuries reported.

Among the losses were the local news archives of Ottawa's history and the 37-year video history of anchor Max Keeping, who will be retiring at the end of March.