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The Texas Towers were three radar platforms constructed like sea-going oil drilling rigs but placed on relatively shallow shoals off-shore of Massachusetts (TT-2), New York (TT-3) and New Jersey (TT-4). Two additional towers were planned (TT-1 and TT-5) but not built. Each tower had three long range radars on the upper deck with communications and data processing equipment just below them on the upper deck. The two lower decks housed the crew quarters with the lower deck dedicated to the diesel generators, the water distillation units and other utilities. All three towers had telephone and data circuits with the shore via tropospheric scatter radio sets.

The towers were anchored to the ocean floor by three hollow legs that were used to store diesel fuel, fresh water and aviation gasoline. The three towers were virtually identical except for the depth of the water and consequently the length of the supporting legs. TT-2 and TT-3 were in 56 and 80 foot of water respectively, TT-4 was in far deeper water at 185 feet. To further complicated emplacement of TT-4 the legs were damaged in transit to the site and temporary repairs were made while awaiting a permanent fix.

TT-4 was lost in a storm on 15 Jan 1961 with all 28 people on board. One of the tower legs was found to have collapsed and the other two then buckled sending the platform to the bottom. The loss of TT-4 had an immediate effect on operations at the two remaining towers. The first effect was that the remaining towers were evacuated with the threat of significant storms and the second effect was that it soon became clear that the towers should be closed. The evacuations caused the loss of 120 operational days between October 1961 and March 1962, when the towers were evacuated ten times. Still later that same year, TT-2 and TT-3 experienced many more evacuations. The evacuations were not pleasant, major storms caused almost total evacuations and total evacuations involved placing 50+ people into the hold of the very small supply boat AKL-17. Additionally, if Soviet trawlers were present, the AKL-17 might be ordered to circle the tower during the storm or hurricane and ride it out at sea. A small escape pod was developed to provide a way for a skeleton crew to survive a tower collapse but there was little confidence that it would work.

In January 1963 the JCS decided to deactivate the two remaining towers and they were quickly shut down, TT-2 on 15 Jan 1963 and TT-3 on 25 Mar 1963.