(News)

The bill for clearing city streets after February's record-setting snowfalls will likely approach a quarter-million dollars.

At last night's council meeting, Mayor Jim Brewster and public-works director Nick Shermenti detailed the aftermath of the two storms that whacked western Pennsylvania on Feb. 5-6 and again on Feb. 10 with more than two feet of snow in some areas.

They also defended the city's snow-plowing efforts in the face of criticism from residents who accused crews of acting too slowly to open streets in some neighborhoods.

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"Am I satisfied?" Brewster said. "No. I wish we would have gotten to everybody in a couple of days."

One thing the city could have done differently, he said, was to hire outside help on the night of Friday, Feb. 5, when the snow first began falling, instead of waiting until Sunday, Feb. 7.

Otherwise, Brewster said, "we wouldn't have done anything differently."

Bills for overtime, fuel and outside contractors are currently estimated at $225,000, Brewster said, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency has warned the city will probably not be reimbursed for most of the expense because it was incurred more than 48 hours after the storm began.

Nevertheless, the city has submitted bills for about $80,000 in expenses incurred on Feb. 5 and 6.

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Outside contractors were hired to supplement the city's DPW force of seven trucks and 28 employees, Shermenti said, and the city's Housing Authority and sewerage authority and McKeesport Area School District helped clear some streets.

"When you have the amount of snow that was falling --- two to three inches per hour --- you can't get in front of it," he said. "And you quit salting, because you'll be wasting the salt."

City crews had difficulty clearing some streets, Shermenti said, because the largest trucks are equipped with nine-foot-wide plow blades.

According to county deed records, many of the city's older residential streets are just 20 to 24 feet wide, and with cars parked on both sides, little more than nine feet is left for traffic. As a result, smaller, pickup-size trucks with seven-foot blades had to be sent instead, Shermenti said.

Even using the smaller trucks, 22 parked cars sustained damage from snow plows.

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Adding to the difficulty were downed electric wires and tree limbs. Eden Park Boulevard was closed for two days because of fallen trees and about 2,500 people lost power, many of them in the Grandview section of the city.

Roughly 70 people stayed overnight at a warming shelter in the Palisades Ballroom, Downtown, according to Coulter, with Zoscak's Market in 10th Ward supplied 400 to 500 hoagies for people without power.

"Our priority was to take care of people who were facing emergencies," Brewster said. "Going to work is not an emergency. If you need to go to work that badly, you can walk."

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Councilwoman Fawn Walker disputed that, noting that some people were threatened with dismissal by employers if they couldn't make it to work.

"Many bosses were not giving people the day off, despite the state of emergency," she said. Walker suggested the city needed a better plan for clearing residential streets after a major snowfall.

The city's snow emergency plan calls for major arteries to be cleared first, Shermenti said, followed by routes leading to UPMC McKeesport hospital and then to schools.

"We do have a game plan in place," he said, "but no community is prepared for three feet of snow. Once you start getting three feet of snow, it's over."