When the derecho came through Iowa last year there was widespread damage, including to the radio towers at Raccoon Valley Radio in Perry. 

General Manager John McGee says when the derecho came through on August 10th of last year the three radio towers were damaged and now work to repair them has begun. 

“We have got a company called Wallace Tower that will be coming in and doing repairs on all three of our towers. Our east tower will have to actually be dropped so the community will literally see one of our towers be taken down and a new one erected.”

McGee tells Raccoon Valley Radio throughout the duration of the project, which is expected to take roughly three to four weeks, there will be some intermittent times where KDLS 1310 AM will be off the air, but McGee says there will still be ways to listen in. 

“We will announce those ahead of time, make sure people know when they are coming. If you do happen to tune in and it’s quiet and you missed the notice for that you can always tune in on 99.7(FM) or online on our streaming or on our mobile app, those will be consistent. Throughout this repair project we will not have to take down our streaming or our app service.”

The project on the Raccoon Valley Radio towers officially begins today.