By George L. Nitti
While having dinner at Chuck E. Cheese in Midland-Odessa, Texas, Travis Turner, lead operator of family-owned and operated Big Sky Towing, was called by crane company TNT to assist in a recovery 200 miles away.
Travis recounted: “The crane company called and said, ‘We rolled one of our cranes about six hours ago. There’s a tow company working on it. Once they get it uprighted, can you tow it in?’”
Big Sky is used to traveling long distances for big recoveries. Travis responded in the affirmative, hoping to grab the crane the following morning. However, it was not to be. The crane company was beginning to have doubts that the company working the recovery would get it successfully overturned.
After previewing pictures sent to him, Travis feared for the worst.
He said, “I’ve messed with these cranes and know what it takes to get them over. The tow company had been out there six to seven hours and they still couldn’t get it flipped over. Their booms didn’t reach far enough, their rigging didn’t look right, and their trucks were too small for the job: Two 35-ton wreckers and a 25 ton.”
Getting ready to leave Chuck E. Cheese, Travis informed that the crane company called back, reporting the tow company “just broke some winch lines and they were packing up and leaving.”
Travis called the Del Rio police department to notify them that they were on their way and asked B & B Wrecker Service of Pecos to assist in the recovery with their 1050 Rotator. Pulling out of their tow yard around 9 p.m., Big Sky brought their two 50-ton wreckers, a V103 Vulcan and their Century 9055.
Around 3 a.m. in the morning, Big Sky rolled into town, arriving after a long night’s travel through the open Texas landscape. Nearing Del Rio, Travis said, “It’s a little two-lane road. It’s curvy and it cuts in and out through the hills and valleys. I wouldn’t call it mountains but there are rock faces on either side.”
The crane lay toppled over on the two-lane highway, leaving little room on both sides of the road for the tow operators to maneuver their units.
Travis informed, “On both sides of the road, there were dangerous 4-foot drop offs mountainside and unleveled ground. It took us 40 minutes to position our trucks and another couple of hours before we were able to get it up.”
Ideally it would have been best if the units were T-boned against the crane, informed Travis. He said, “We were set up in a kind of sling shot. We were trying to do a reverse roll on the crane, but you really need to be in a T-bone position for that.”
As they lifted the crane, Travis said their booms were pushed to the limits and that the rotator started to float. He said, “My boom was being forced to the left and his was booming out to the right. It was causing the rotator to float and if you are past your limitation and you keep going, you could flip."
Making the recovery more difficult was that the crane would not come over as the dollies were holding it down. But thankfully, the tow operators finally got it up.
After cleaning the scene, Travis informed that he was hooked to the crane at 11 a.m and ready to head back to Midland-Odessa. On their way, they would treat themselves to a Dairy Queen and joke when they saw another TNT crane going back to Del Rio. "I guess they are going to try it again."
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Do you have a recovery to share with TIW readers? Send some pics and info to our Field Editor George L. Nitti at georgenitti@gmail.com; your story may even be selected for print in American Towman Magazine!
By George L. Nitti
Although tow operators are skilled at maneuvering their units in tight spaces, some spaces prove more challenging than others, requiring a different approach and equipment.
Last June, McGuire’s Towing & Recovery of Ashland, Kentucky was called in the afternoon to recover a dump truck weighted down with more than 10,000 pounds of gravel. It had overturned on a narrow county road that was partially under repair.
“The dump truck went up the hill and had to back down the hill,” said principal tow operator Stephen McGuire. “When there’s a lot of weight on a small road and you get too close to the edge, it will give way. So this dump truck rolled right over into a ditch.”
Ideally McGuire’s would have recovered the dump truck with their 50 or 60 ton rotator, but that was impossible under the circumstances.
Arriving on scene 65 miles from their location, brothers Stephen and Sam McGuire brought in their 2018 Ram 5500 2465 Century 12 ton/SP 9000 Side Puller and a 2015 Peterbuilt 337 Century 3212 16 ton.
Stephen said, “The two trucks that we got in there were about as big as we could get in there.”
Looking at the little room in which they had to maneuver and the extreme angle at which the dump truck was perched, Steve admitted that the recovery looked daunting, saying to himself, “This is going to be a nightmare. Maybe we will come back tomorrow.”
But as the two brothers prepared for the job (they have been working together since they were kids driving with their father at 8 to 10 years old) they were resolved to finish what they started.
Stephen said, “Working with my brother – we kind of feed off of each other. We’ve never left anything behind. Everything we went after, it’s came out and it’s come with us at the time we went to go with it.”
The first line of business was clearing the area and offloading some of the gravel. Fortunately, a Kubota Excavator was being used along the county road and was available for their use to clear away brush, briar thickets and poison ivy around the casualty.
“We also had to deal with a huge hornet nest that was buried in that bank on the top side of the dump truck,” said Stephen.
Then the tow operators positioned their trucks in front and behind the casualty.
“We had to take the front hubcap off to get the truck in place because there was no room to get any angle. We backed up one truck a mile and half while the Dodge was driven in.”
Establishing winch lines to the casualty, Stephen ran a three-part line to the front springs of the passenger side of the dump truck while Sam handled the back side, running a two-part line to a tree about 50 feet up the hill and back down, where it was hooked to the backside of the driver’s side.
Tightening up the lines, they checked for any issues that would have “showed themselves up” during the recovery process and slid the truck up sideways until they were able to upright it by first sliding the rear onto the road and then pulling up the nose of the truck.
“We had to work quickly,” said Steve. “In these hills it gets a little darker a little faster.”
With mission accomplished in less than an hour, the truck was drivable, with no damage.
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Do you have a recovery to share with TIW readers? Send some pics and info to our Field Editor George L. Nitti at georgenitti@gmail.com; your story may even be selected for print in American Towman Magazine!
By George L. Nitti
On September 28, Hurricane Ian swept into southeast Florida, bringing with it 150 mph winds that caused devastation and ruin. Fort Myers was ground zero, as Ian leveled the city, gutting buildings, demolishing homes, overturning cars and trucks, and tossing boats onto shore.
Much of the recovery work would fall into the lap of Alligator Towing and Transport, as the exclusive towing provider for the city of Ft. Myers. Alligator has a long-standing relationship with the city of Fort Myers and is actively involved in the community. As the hurricane approached, Alligator was deployed as an official member Hurricane Emergency Response Team.
However, they were not working alone, but under the umbrella of their parent company Guardian Fleet Services, the largest towing, recovery, and specialized transportation provider in the United States. Concentrated in Florida, Guardian’s other enterprises participated, including A Superior Towing, Ace Wrecker, Crockett’s Towing, Kauff’s Transportation Systems, and Professional Towing and Recovery.
With Guardian supporting Alligator, tow forces were mobilized before and after Ian’s arrival. Alligator’s terminal manager, Anthony Pasqualini said, “Team members from Tallahassee to Jacksonville to Miami supported Alligator with additional manpower and trucks into the Ft. Myers markets to facilitate recoveries and aid community efforts.” This included their 100 ton rotator used for specialized recoveries and their severe incident recovery team.
In preparation for the storm, the company did a variety of things throughout the city and surrounding areas to ensure that the city’s and customers’ equipment was properly secured, including machinery transports, and assisting and moving large pieces of equipment.
“Ten days prior to Ian, we were at the height of getting ready,” said Pasqualini. “We were bringing equipment in and staging it.”
Since the hurricane, the breadth of the recovery has been staggering, some of which has included the steady transport of massive transformers, generators, and propane tankers; up righting overturned vehicles and trucks; and recovering more than 50 boats of all sizes, including transport to tow or salvage yards.
Pasqualini said, “For the crew, obstacles abounded, as secondary roads were impossible to travel and it was difficult to navigate around low hanging powerlines.”
Particularly useful during the emergency response was their M100 Century Rotator, purchased in April of 2022. With 8300 square foot working space and a lift capability of 200,000 pounds, it came in particularly handy working with the utility companies and moving 100,000 + pound transformers.
“We had to work really closely with electrical providers for safety reasons,” said Anthony. “One transformer weighed over 142 thousand pounds. With the M100, we loaded the transformers onto our transport 13 axle trailers such as the Landolls and detachable low boys. We also trailered huge generators for the power companies.”
In Cape Coral, a seven mile stretch of high-tension power lines folded to the ground, necessitating the company transport transformers, power lines and rolls of wire. Another job entailed up righting 30 semi-tractor trailers a couple of days after the storm that had blown over by the force of the winds.
Countless boats also needed attention. Pasqualini said, “Boats and barges floated over construction sites and landed inside concrete buildings that weren’t finished. We recovered 15 Nortek boats that had floated to a construction site and 60-ton Silverton boats that went into people’s homes, lifting them back in the water.”
One case included tractor tankers that were full of propane that floated from Ft. Myers Beach back over to the mainland of Ft. Myers in somebody’s backyard. Pasqualini said, “You couldn’t access all but a side street and reach over power lines. That was a 6-hour recovery job.”
Pasqualini concluded, “Our team is really about helping each other. They were doing all of this while thinking about their own homes and families. Everybody was so dedicated to the overall goal, restoring Ft. Myers and getting it back up and running.”
Editor's Note: This story was originally published in American Towman Magazine, January 2023 Edition.
Show Yours @ TIW
Do you have a recovery to share with TIW readers? Send some pics and info to our Field Editor George L. Nitti at georgenitti@gmail.com; your story may even be selected for print in American Towman Magazine!
