If you have a flood or other serious storm related damage to your Mt. Lebanon home or business, please give the Public Works Department a call right away at 412.343.3403 for help in assessing what happened. The longer you wait, the harder it is for them to piece together the sequence of events. Obviously, if you are having an immediate emergency, call 9-1-1. Thanks for helping them to help you.
Later (August 2, 2013 9:58 AM) on Facebook and in a LeboALERT:
The U.S. Small Business Association has opened an outreach center at the Allegheny County airport to serve residents and business owners who would like to apply for low interest loans to repair damage from the recent severe storms. For specific information, visit www.mtlebanon.orgunder "news and announcements" at the bottom of the homepage.
I am still collecting names of streets where there were flooding issues. There is a list on the sidebar. Don't do what we did and repair the damage, only to have it happen again. Make sure the problem is corrected. Contact the commission at commission@mtlebanon.org and contact Tom Kelley, Public Works at tkelley@mtlebanon.org.
The municipality is collecting a storm water fee from residents and tax-exempt organizations. To read more about Mt. Lebanon's storm water fee, visit Storm Sewers Budget and the Approved Ordinance. Not only does the municipality collect a storm water fee, they are also considering spending $700,000 to turf a school district fee. I am hoping they do the right thing and help residents who had storm related damage to their homes.
18 comments:
Funny--
"If you have a flood or other serious storm related damage to your Mt. Lebanon home or business, please give the Public Works Department a call right away at 412.343.3403 for help in assessing what happened. The longer you wait, the harder it is for them to piece together the sequence of events."
So , the big storm was July 10th and they wait until August 1st to tell residents to contact public works ASAP because delaying makes it harder to piece together the sequence of events.
OK now we know, hope they'll get this out again immediately after we have the 5th hundred year storm.
10:55 PM, I am trying to understand why there is a need to piece together the sequence of events. It rained a whole bunch and then people got flooded a whole bunch.
Sounds like something an insurance company would say.
Elaine
One last thing for tonight, why was that first message only on Facebook and not put in a LeboALERT? The SBA low interest loans offer went on Facebook and out as a Lebo ALERT.
Elaine
Exactly. This smells like a "hey we're doing something," because they discovered the county was.
If they spent as much time focusing on storm sewers as they do on try to buy useless property and figuring out how to satisfy the SAB a lot of people might not have gotten flooded.
But good point Elaine, why wasn't it on Leboalert if time is of the essence.
"Small Business Association"?? Just a touch of civic illiteracy there. The Small Business Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. Federal Government, not an "association" (which implies a private membership organization). So, if one doesn't know who one is talking about, it might reasonably be inferred that one doesn't know what they are talking about (but, you knew that).
Here are voluntary expenses for the Municipality in the last two years
Recreation Bond $4,537,300
Unassigned Fund Balance
Spent last year $1,394,950
Available this year $829,561
We had $6,761,811 to spend on improved infrastructure spending in the last two years and we put most of it at the bottom of the Mount Lebanon pool. Now we want to give money to the spendthrift school district for turf.
Add in the $3,230,000 energy bond and the total comes to $9,991,811 in funds we could have spent responsibly to fix sewers that flood peoples homes and fix rotten streets and sidewalks. We have to wonder if the Managers in this town are capable of responsible government? Can we depend upon them to maintain the energy efficiency to pay off the $3,230,000 energy bond issue?
Mount Lebanon is looking more like Detroit every day because they are risking the safety and well being of the whole population here to serve special interests.
Hello Elaine,
An interesting news flash popped-up on this morning:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/business/media/new-york-times-company-sells-boston-globe.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
In short, the New York Times just sold the Boston Globe newspaper to the owner of the Boston Red Sox for $70MM. The real story is that they New York Times bought the paper about 20 years ago for $1.1B.
That's quite a drop in valuation...
So, if this is another sign of the collapse in printed media, why in Mt Lebanon continuing to invest so heavily in MtL?
One thing is certain, social media is here to stay and websites like this one will continue to enlighten the community with truth and unbiased communication.
Thank you again for your tireless commitment to presenting a truthful and transparent view of Mt Lebanon.
Sincerely,
John Kendrick
That is very kind of you, John. I have to thank the Lebo Citizens readers who keep me informed, so that I can, in turn, keep the public informed. I have a lot of help.
Elaine
I guess we're to assume that a simple slip like using Association instead of Administration in a blog post is a far more important issue than getting timely information out to stormwater impacted homeowners.
That's the way to keep the priorities in order!
It is when the PIO makes $100,000 to make it right. All you had to do was copy and paste the announcement that is posted here. http://www.mtlebanon.org/DocumentCenter/View/9620
Where is the LeboALERT announcing this program?
Elaine
Sorry, thiught the slip of Association was here, not by the PIO. Here its excusable for the PIO/editor there is no excuse, its your job.
4 homes (that I know of) were flooded on lower Shadowlawn Ave, including mine
6:06 PM, did you contact Public Works, as directed by the PIO? When you were flooded, did you call 911? Is anyone helping you? Was this the first time that it happened?
Elaine
Lower Shadowlawn has had flooding problems for many, many years. I believe it was about 10 years ago - 2002 to 2004 - in one of the several "100 year storms" that flooding was particularly damaging, but thought the muni finally took steps to correct the stormwater problem ?
When you have 4 - hundred years storms in 10 or 12 years does the term hundred year storm start to becomes a meaningless excuse?
I added three more streets that had quite a bit of flood damage. Looking at the wards listed, all the commissioners should be concerned about this. There has been damage in every ward of Mt. Lebanon.
Elaine
Hey 12:52 from August 3 --- did you say getting "timely" information out.....really, almost a month late is NOT "timely" --- ignorance and covering your tracks seem to dominate the response of the politicians and their spokesfolk in LEBO
So, with all of that water run-off from the turfed fields, how is that going to help flooding?
Or have they discovered a special turf that absorbs water and doesn't allow for run-off?
Post a Comment