Blame Mother Nature for the silence from KRCC public radio this past week. A lightning strike last week knocked KRCC, an NPR member station based in Colorado Springs (operating at 95.7 in Chaffee County) off the air. Engineers investigating the outage say that the lightning hit the station’s broadcasting tower on Methodist Mountain.
“The lack of signal in Chaffee County is the result of a thunderstorm a week or so ago. It appears that our transmitter atop Methodist Mountain sustained a major lightning strike, and we are not sure what the solution is,” said Station Manager Jeff Bieri. “At least five buildings on the site have excessive equipment damage, and we are trying to assemble resources to get back on the air, but, like anything these days, it may take a little while.”
According to station engineer’s communications this morning, it appears they hope to get the necessary equipment in by tomorrow morning to get back to the site for repairs. Bieri added that while that may sound simple, it’s not.
“One obstacle is that Salida is two hours from Colorado Springs, and three hours from Denver, before they take a 90-minute four-wheel drive crawl to the site. Since travel on I-70 is tenuous because of wildfires, the drive time to Salida may be doubled along U.S. 285 or U.S. 50” He added, “Please bear with us – KRCC and [Colorado Public Radio] CPR are devoting everything we have to solving this, and we will be back in Chaffee County as soon as possible. We are hopeful that we will be back on the air today or tomorrow,” said Bieri.
Lightning strike on a mountain. Image by Michael Shainbum
KRCC is a member of the Mountain West News Bureau and one of the state’s largest public radio stations. Last January, it entered into a joint operating agreement with Colorado Public Radio (CPR); a move that allows CPR to expand into southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. According to station management, the move, first announced in January extends resources for KRCC and allows CPR to oversee the newsroom, programming, and most of the station’s finances.
The non-commercial, member-supported public media service has been affiliated and operated in partnership with Colorado College. CPR signed a new agreement with Colorado College to help operate KRCC.
KRCC is among the founding partners of the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration of public media stations that serve the Rocky Mountain states of Colorado Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming.
The arrangement is termed “a mutually beneficial joint partnership”, allowing KRCC, which has a large coverage area but a small reporting staff, to continue operating under its own name and to retain local hosts. By last spring, it also began airing stories, features, and shows from Colorado Public Radio, which has many more reporters, allowing further expand into southern Colorado.
“Colorado Public Radio has said that they commit to keeping KRCC’s news presence and our impact on the community in the forefront of their mind,” said CPR president and CEO, Stewart Vanderwilt when the operating agreement was signed. “This partnership isn’t about consolidation to reduce costs and create efficiencies. It’s about adding scale and capacity to create and deliver more news that is important to the community.”
Vanderwilt envisioned KRCC becoming a kind of hub for Colorado Public Radio — a station that continues to generate local content for Colorado Springs listeners while importing and exporting statewide news to and from CPR.
Over the last two years, CPR has acquired hyper-local online news platform Denverite, hired new reporters across Colorado, launched an investigative team, and a climate solutions reporting team. KRCC began broadcasting May 7, 1951, and at the time the joint agreement was signed was operating at 2,100 watts @ 687 meters above average terrain.
While awaiting repairs, loyal listeners can stream KRCC at www.krcc.org.
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