Senior Road Tower Collapse Site, Texas

In 1982, five people were killed when this 1,800-foot communications tower, one of the tallest in the world, collapsed. The accident occurred when the final piece of the antenna mast was being hoisted into place. It broke free, with two workers on it, and fell downward, severing a guy wire, which caused the tower to tumble. It has been repaired, and is now more than 1,900 feet tall, and is one of several very tall independent radio and TV towers in this antenna field, southwest of Houston’s flat landscape. The site is open to antennas as the land is above the Blue Ridge Salt Dome, an underground salt formation which was worked over by the oil industry, and may be unsuitable to other types or development. It is still the location of some extractive wells, and underground gas storage chambers as well.