From the 1970s until 2001 , the tower also served as a weather beacon to signal residents and visitors of inclement weather affecting Kansas City and its immediate surrounding communities . For this purpose , station engineers switched individual sets of lights on the tower and moded them to flash when a severe weather watch or warning was issued for any county in the immediate Kansas City area by the local National Weather Service Forecast Office or the National Severe Storms Forecast Center/Storm Prediction Center , activating them in descending order – in one or more of three sections – in pertinence to the specific weather situation : After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon on September 11 , 2001 , as symbols of American patriotism were heavily embraced in their immediate aftermath , KCTV engineers installed LED lights on the tower to correspond to the colors of the United States flag , placing red lights on the top third , white lights on the middle third and blue lights on the bottom third of the structure . In 2004 , the lights on the tower were turned off entirely until all of the bulbs could be replaced ; the lights on the tower were reactivated on July 1 , 2006 , with white lights having been installed on all of its sections , as had originally been standard until the 1970s . Since then , the lights have not flashed for the purpose of being a notifier of inclement weather conditions as they did prior to September 11 , 2001
terrorist attacks
September 11 attacks
KCTV