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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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.
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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 California got much-needed rain in the month of January, not all fared well as the downpours wreaked havoc on the roadways, where driver casualties abounded.
In San Diego County, around the city of Escondido, Tow Industry Week Operaton's Editor reported: "A car carrier semi-truck trailer traveling Highway 15 during those torrential rains lost control, hitting a slick of standing water and hydroplaning up an embankment, causing the trailer with seven-cars to JACK-KNIFE.
Resch, who mentored both of the owners and lead operators mentioned in this story, continued, “The semi skidded and rolled onto its side and up ended under a giant overpass where the tractor hit the underside of the bridge and became stuck."
Subsequently, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) dispatched Roadway Towing of Escondido, California, who in-turn called Cortes Towing of San Diego, California to bring their 1140 Century Rotator to scene. Roadway brought 7 tow operators, their Century 70/35 on a 2020 389 Peterbuilt, a medium duty 16 ton on a 2020 Peterbuilt and seven flatbeds.
Upon arriving, owner and lead operator Frank Khati of Roadway Towing contemplated the situation and decided that it was best not to do this complicated recovery from underneath the bridge. Instead, his decision was to reposition the carrier and pull it back 100 hundred feet.
“I wasn’t going to take a chance that it would hit the top of the bridge.”
Working closely with Cortes tow owner Johnny Cortes, who gave invaluable input on the job, the team centered the tractor trailer in front of the block lanes and brought it away from the walls, using lines from all three recovery trucks to pull it back and some nifty metal bracket-plates to help with the slide.
“It was a slow, tedious process,” said Khati. “It took about an hour and a half to two hours to get it out from the bridge.”
The rotator, along with the other two heavy duties, were then positioned to help with the up righting of the tractor trailer, no easy maneuver considering the massive weight of the cargo.
Once the tractor trailer was carefully overturned and the scissored tractor straightened out, however, the job would become more labor-intensive.
“Then we got our asses kicked,” said Khati. “We had to cage the brakes, cutting all of the hydraulic lines and capping them. We had to fix the air lines. And the fifth wheel on the tractor didn’t want to come out. It was a NIGHTMARE!”
Meanwhile all seven cars on the carrier were on their sides, with chains stuck and wrapped around the vehicles. Using a saw cutter, Khati said, “I had to deal with one chain at a time. I lost a lot of weight on this job.”
Then each car had to be dragged away from the trailer, up righted and put on the flatbeds for transport back to Roadway’s facility, five miles away.
Khati noted that at the request of CHP, the crew was also kept busy cleaning up diesel fuel with 50 bags of kitty litter, in what he described as an act of futility, the rain washing away whatever absorbent that was put down on the ground. “It was like a river coming through,” he said. “I don’t think the litter did much good.”
Eventually the team pulled the carrier to the side of the road, so that traffic could flow.
“All of the cars were totaled,” said Khati. “The driver demolished the cargo and truck. He is lucky to be alive.”
Although a gargantuan job, the recovery was a success for all concerned, including the motorists.
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!
