Alle-Kiski Valley largely spared wrath of storms that downed trees, knocked out power to thousands

A 150-foot tall elm tree that toppled Tuesday along Carlisle Street in Harrison couldn’t have been positioned more perfectly.

Inches either way, and the 110-year-old tree would have smashed roofs, broke windows or at least tore gutters away from the two homes it landed between.

“If this had to happen, it’s in the perfect position,” homeowner Cynthia Adams said.

She wasn’t home early Tuesday evening when storms rolled across Western Pennsylvania and wreaked havoc with power outages, downed power lines and property damage.

“My neighbor called and said I better get home,” Adams said.

The elm was one of 179 that lined the residential street. On Wednesday, the scene drew comments from passersby who stopped to gawk at the 20-foot-wide root system pulled from the sidewalk.

Adams spent much of the morning on her front lawn assessing the situation. She is among several neighbors who belong to the Allegheny Shade Tree Association, a 10-member group tasked with maintaining the stately row of trees.

The group prunes and inspects the trees, and has been working to methodically replace the diseased ones with hybrid Dutch Elm-resistant varieties.

Association member Gene Becker said the group has doled out at least 70 replacements in recent years in order to see healthy, sturdy trees grow along the road.

Carlisle Street is notable as the largest stand of elms in a suburban setting in the state, Becker said.

“We work hard at maintaining these trees because we want this tradition to continue,” Adams said.

Despite the damage to the historic line of elms, the Alle-Kiski Valley was largely spared the wrath of the storms.

A tree came down in the Werner Camp area of Harmar, but it, too, missed nearby homes and damaged only some lawn furniture.

In the Kiski Valley portion of Armstrong County, only a few downed trees and sporadic power outages were reported, according to the county’s emergency dispatch center.

The New Kensington area similarly escaped any damage, said Ed Saliba Jr., chief of the New Kensington Fire Department.

Death in Upper St. Clair

Other areas were not so lucky.

A man died when a tree fell onto the vehicle he was driving in Upper St. Clair, according to authorities.

The driver, whose name was not released by police, was waiting at a red light at McMurray and Bethel Church roads when a tree fell onto two vehicles, according to Lt. Mike Lindenfelser.

Investigators said the man was in critical condition when first responders pulled him from the vehicle. He was transported to St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon where he later died, Lindenfelser said.

The man’s wife, a passenger in the vehicle, was unhurt. A family of six in the other car hit by the tree also was uninjured.

Damage significant in central Westmoreland

In Westmoreland County, storm damage appeared to be concentrated in the central part of the county.

One person was hospitalized Tuesday evening after being trapped in a vehicle on top of which a carport and tree landed during heavy storms, according to Bradenville Fire Chief Mark Piantine.

Firefighters freed the man in Loyalhanna and he was taken to AHN Forbes Hospital in Monroeville with multiple fractures.

It was one of about 20 calls that Bradenville volunteer firefighters answered in a couple hours, he said.

Westmoreland County received more 1,000 emergency 911 calls between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tuesday night as the storms rolled through, said Roland Mertz, director of the county’s public safety department.

The Route 30 corridor between North Huntingdon through Latrobe and into Derry was the hardest hit.

First responders were dispatched to 268 reports of downed trees and another 220 calls for felled electrical wires.

The storms caused widespread power outages in the region, with thousands still waiting for service to be restored.

At its peak, West Penn Power reported 44,800 customers were without power shortly before 8 p.m.

West Penn Power said Wednesday morning that are bringing in 230 additional line workers to restore power, particularly in the hard-hits areas of Westmoreland County.

Rain totals

Rainfall totals in Westmoreland ranged from 0.9-inch in Greensburg, to 1.1 inch in Irwin, 1.9 inches in Mt. Pleasant and 1.9 at the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Unity.

In Allegheny County, about 2 inches of rain fell in Pittsburgh’s South Hills communities of West Mifflin and Brentwood, while an inch was recorded at the weather service station in Moon Township, said Lee Hendricks, a National Weather Service meteorologist.