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While the actual disaster was not that severe, the legal and political issues surrounding the famous Hollywood building made the task of resuming business that much more difficult.
Broadcast engineers generally enjoy a certain amount of crisis. Most like being resourceful and switching to battle mode when there is a serious problem that threatens to keep the stations off the air. It's a good way to test one's mettle. When a fire left the Lotus Communications stations in Los Angeles in peril, Chief Engineer John Cooper had the opportunity to test his mettle as a broadcast engineer.
Lotus Communications owns three stations in the Los Angeles area. KWKW-AM 1330 isa 5kW Spanish-language talk-format radio station that simulcasts on its sisterstation KWKU-AM 1220. KWKW serves the Spanish-language segment of Southern California's population and is the Spanish voice of the LA Lakers, Dodgers, Sparks and Chivas. KIRN-AM 670, Radio Iran is America's first commercial Iranian-language station serving another segment of the multi-cultural Los Angeles area.
KWKW, KWKU and KIRN studios were on the 6th and 15th floors in a landmark building at Hollywood's Sunset and Vine. The building was a 20-story high-rise that offered a breathtaking view of the LA basin from its 360 Club on the top. The building, memorialized in the 1974 disaster fihn Earthquake, is on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.
On Dec. 6, 2001, disaster really struck the so-called Earth quake Tower when the main electrical room in the basement was destroyed by fire. The building was built in 1964 and didn't have many electrical backups and improvements that are required today. Although the building was structurally sound and all the electrical and plumbing was fine, the entire building was evacuated. Everything was...