Colder Temperatures Blow Into Area, Cause Problems For Morning Commute
PITTSBURGH (KDKA/AP) -- A shot of extremely cold air, ice and snow blew into the region over the weekend.
KDKA Meteorologist Ron Smiley says for the most part the snow has finished for the day. He says there could be a passing shower along the I-80 corridor, but anything falling south of the interstate won't be much at all.
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Road crews were out in full force overnight, and the wind that came with this system caused some issues for morning commuters.
The gusty winds kept Red Line commuters off the rails in Beechview Monday morning; the winds knocked down several trees onto the tracks on Sunday evening.
As the trees came down, so did overhead power lines. Part of the Red Line had to be shut down.
"Considering it's the coldest day of the year, it's a big inconvenience, but they're really organized about it, which is great, so I'm just going to go to work," said Karen Gilmer, of Dormont.
The detours meant getting off the train and onto a bus.
"It's an incredible inconvenience to use the shuttles, and we know that," said Port Authority spokesman Jim Ritchie. "Obviously, we had our workers out all night trying to get this done as soon as possible."
Ritchie says they anticipated there might be some damage to the rail lines, but this was more than they expected. They had to call in extra crews to work on the Red Line repairs.
"Normally, it's just one tree and it's a little bit less of a repair that can be done a little bit more easily, but in this case, it was pretty significant," Ritchie said.
Crews worked all night to remove the debris from the rails and get the power restored, but it wasn't enough in time for the morning commute.
"Obviously, we couldn't get it back open for the morning rush hour just because the damage was pretty extensive," Ritchie said.
The Port Authority was advising commuters to allow for extra travel time Monday morning, but around 11:30 a.m., they announced they were finally able to begin getting service restored.
In Fayette County, officials are blaming icy roads for an eight-vehicle accident. Fayette County 911 dispatchers say nobody was hurt in the pileup about 6:30 a.m. Monday on County Line Road in Saltlick Township.
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The winds also brought down trees in Bellevue and Mount Washington on Sunday night.
Duquesne Light reported that power was knocked out to about 350 homes across the area, while West Penn Power reported 1,300 outages on Sunday. Power is now back on for most customers.
Meanwhile, Mayor Bill Peduto's office announced Sunday a Level 1 Snow Alert.
Crews have been monitoring road surfaces that are more likely to freeze due to wet snow and high winds. Approximately 34 vehicles were out overnight.
You can visit the City of Pittsburgh Snow Resource Center for more information: http://www.pittsburghpa.gov/snow/; and you can track snow plows in the area here: https://city.temeda.com/
The vehicles are continuing to monitor the roads.
That's because we could see about one to three inches of snow fall during the Tuesday morning rush. Smiley says the city could see upwards of an inch of snow overnight with higher totals the farther east you go.
(TM and © Copyright 2016 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
