COLLAPSE OF TEXAS TOWER NO. 4 39 
terms of wind velocities and wave heights, a computation which re- 
quires roughly a week’s time. In the middle of November 1960, after 
the extent of the damage caused by Hurricane Donna became known 
and after one of the structural design engineers, Mr. Kuss, declined 
to advise as to the tower’s remaining strength, General Elder, com- 
mander of the Boston Air Defense Sector, ordered an evacuation of 
personnel from the tower to the maximum extent possible consistent 
with maintaining military custody of valuable Air Force equipment 
and with providing support to the civilian workers engaged in further 
tower repair. 
Committee conclusion.—Were it not for the commendable exercise 
of prudent judgment demonstrated by General Elder in ordering 
maximum possible evacuation of personnel and operational standdown 
of tower No. 4 because the structural design engineer would give him 
no indication of the tower’s residual strength, it is probable that a 
far greater number of lives would have been lost. 
Ix 
Finding.—It was proposed that cable bracing in a crossed pattern 
on the A-B side of the tower would be installed to substitute for and 
be in lieu of the upper two panels of braces on the assumption that 
the lowest panel of braces on that side was still intact and functioning 
properly. Work preparatory to the installation of this cable bracing 
was in process but these braces had not been installed prior to the 
tower’s collapse. A storm occurred on December 12, 1960, after which 
it was discovered that a diagonal brace in the lowest panel was broken. 
This defect was discovered on January 7, 1961. On January 12, 1961, 
the structural design engineers were again requested to advise as to 
the remaining strength of the tower, but would not do so other than 
to state that 1t was in a dangerous condition. It was further stated, 
in what appears to have been somewhat of an off-the-cuff opinion, 
that even after the cable bracing had been installed, but with the 
lowest diagonal brace still broken, the tower would then be only 55 
percent as strong as its original design strength, but that the per- 
centage could not be applied in direct proportion to wind velocities 
and wave heights of the design criteria. 
Committee conclusion.—From September 12, 1960, to the date of the 
tower’s collapse on January 15, 1961, the structural design engineers 
either could not or would not evaluate the tower’s remaining strength 
even though it could have been done in a week’s time; despite the 
fact that they were under a contractual responsibility to evaluate the 
tower’s residual strength; and in the face of the obvious and urgent 
need of the Air Force to possess such an evaluation. 
The neglect or failure of the structural design engineers to evaluate 
the tower’s remaining strength afforded no measure by which the Air 
Force could relate its predicted weather forecasts to the wind and 
wave forces the tower was capable of withstanding at the time of its 
collapse. 
