Strong winds from a 5/24 storm in Eau Claire, WI took down a 200 foot tall radio tower for Clear Channel’s WBIZ-AM fell over around 4:30 in the afternoon. Just moments before power had gone out, knocking all stations in the building off the air. Employees told WQOW-TV the winds were so strong and loud, they didn’t even hear the tower collapse. It hit a shed housing electronic systems. No one was injured. The other stations included WATQ-FM, WBIZ-FM, WMEQ-AM, WMEQ-FM and WQRB-FM.
The storm knocked out power to 6,700 area residents. As of 7:30 a.m. Friday morning, Xcel Energy said about 1,500 customers are still without power in the Eau Claire area. The majority of the outages are due to broken power poles and downed power lines.
