COLLAPSE OF TEXAS TOWER NO. 4 223 



Mr. Rau. No, sir ; we did. 



Senator Symington. You did? 



Mr. Rau. Yes, sir. 



Senator Symington. Did he object at any time to the way you did 

 it? 



Mr. Rau. No, sir. I do not know of any objection. 



Senator Symington. Then, at a certain time you had completed the 

 work of locating the tower, is that correct ? 



Mr. Rau. That is right, sir. 



Senator Symington. When did you find that the tower was broken ? 



Mr. Rau. Do you mean when did we first know that any braces 

 were broken. Senator ? 



Senator Symington. That is right. 



Mr. Rau. The first indication of any braces being broken was in our 

 inspection after Donna last October 1960. 



Senator Symington. But you did not know of any failure at the 

 time that you upended the tower ? 



Mr. Rau. Oh, I am sorry. We, as I explained before, during the 

 night of July 4 and the morning of July 5, the two braces folded over 

 on the A-B side, at elevation minus 75 feet were damaged ; one, in fact, 

 was broken off, and the other was damaged, I am sorry. 



Senator Symington. That, I thought was your previous testimony. 



Mr. Rau. That is right, sir. I didn't understand it. 



Senator Symington. Was that at the time of the original installa- 

 tion ? 



Mr. Rau. That is right, sir. 



Senator Symington. Why did they break off? 



Mr, Rau. We had quite a severe storm that evening of July 4 and 

 early July 5, and in fact, it was so severe that some of the gentlemen, 

 Mr. Steers here and Mr. Rutledge who were coming out on Mr. An- 

 derson's yacht, never were able to get out of Patchogue, Long Island, 

 and they finally had to go back and they came back on our boat from 

 Fall River on the 6th, Mr. Steers did. 



Senator Symington. Was the storm one — this is a surmise, but I 

 think it a fair question — was the storm one which you feel was greater 

 than the people who designed the tower felt any storm would ever be? 



Mr. Rau. Well, Senator, of course, the storm which you are re- 

 ferring to was the storm that hit us while the template was in floata- 

 tion prior to upending. 



If you are referring to the design criteria that were set up by the 

 architect engineer for after the template or platform was in place, 

 they are two different things. 



Senator Symington. I understand. But my point is that in an 

 effort to locate responsibility, was the design basically at fault or was 

 the fact that you decided, regardless of the storm and with the ap- 

 proval of the Navy, to put it up on that day or night or 2 days and 2 

 nights, what was the primary reason for the breakage of the tower? 



Mr. Rau. Well, the primary reason for the breakage of those two 

 diagonal braces on the night or early morning of the 4th and 5th of 

 July, was due to the successive storms and, of course, we were out there 

 some 85 miles from the Jersey coast, and there was just no place to 

 i-un; we just had to ride it out, and that is what we did, to the best of 

 our ability. 



