January 30, 2017 |
By Submitted Report | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
(Editor's Note: This story was written by Linda Curinga, manager of marketing and communications at Penn State Greater Allegheny.)
Students in an engineering design class at Penn State Greater Allegheny learned about 3-D printing technology as well as the challenges faced by people who need assistive devices when they participated in a contest to design and make their own prosthetic hands.
The students, who were taking instructor Alandra Kahl's Introduction to Engineering Design class during the fall semester, participated in the nationwide challenge put on by the E-Nable Project and the Prosthetic Kids Hand Challenge.
“It’s always a plus when students can find a way to help others in the community while learning and expanding their knowledge base," Kahl says. "This project helped students to learn and hone basic design skills, and will, hopefully, be able to make it easier for children to perform daily tasks."
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January 12, 2017 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
(Photo above: Dura-Bond pipe manufacturing operations near Harrisburg. Dominion Gas Co. photo via YouTube.)
McKeesport's claim to be the "Tube City" appears to be alive again.
Westmoreland County-based Dura-Bond Industries, which operates pipe-coating operations in Liberty Borough and Duquesne, announced today that it is leasing and will re-open U.S. Steel's former McKeesport Tubular Operations plant, also known as the electric resistance weld mill.
The McKeesport mill is the second pipe-manufacturing operation to be re-opened by Dura-Bond, which also owns a former Bethlehem Steel pipe mill in Steelton, near Harrisburg.
Terms of the purchase were not released. The ERW mill in McKeesport is the last remaining vestige of McKeesport's National Tube Works, which once employed more than 7,000 people.
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December 19, 2016 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
A smartphone parking meter app developed by a Mon Valley-based company is bring its services to McKeesport.
City council this month approved a one-year agreement with Braddock-based Meter Feeder Inc. to provide payment services for McKeesport's parking meters.
Meter Feeder allows municipalities to tie their existing parking meters into a computer database that allows motorists to pay for parking using either coins or their smartphones. The app uses GPS location information to detect where cars are parked. It's already in use in Braddock, Dormont, Greensburg, Homestead, Sewickley and other Western Pennsylvania cities.
The company was co-founded by former McKeesport area resident Dan Lopretto and CMU graduate James Gibbs and has attracted positive stories from national media outlets such as TechCrunch and TechTimes.
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December 16, 2016 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office has identified the victim of a fire that swept through a Munhall senior citizen high rise on Friday morning.
Richard Miller, 61, was pronounced dead at the scene of the blaze at Parkview Towers on Caroline Drive.
The fire in the seven-story building, owned by a corporation affiliated with the United Methodist Church, was reported just before 5 a.m. and took two hours to bring under control.
More than 20 fire companies from as far away as Westmoreland County were called to the scene, which forced the evacuation of 80 people, some of them with serious disabilities, county officials said.
Seven residents of the building suffered minor injuries and were taken to local hospitals, said Matt Brown, chief of Allegheny County emergency services, and three Munhall police officers had to be treated for smoke inhalation after they helped evacuate the building.
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December 16, 2016 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
A resident was found dead, and about 90 people were evacuated, following a fire at a senior-citizen high-rise apartment building in Munhall.
The fire at Parkview Tower on Caroline Street was reported just before 5 a.m., said Allegheny County Emergency Services Chief Matt Brown. Firefighters arrived five minutes after the initial 9-1-1 alarm and discovered the blaze on the seventh floor of the building was spreading to the roof.
A "mass casualty" incident was declared and additional emergency crews were summoned to help evacuate the elderly residents, many of whom have disabilities and use walkers and canes, Brown said.
Seven people were taken to area hospitals and one person was found dead at the scene. Brown said he could not release the person's name or where, exactly, they were found in the building.
The cause of the fire is unknown and remains under investigation, he said.
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December 15, 2016 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
A second resident of Kane Regional Center in McKeesport has tested positive for the bacteria that causes Legionnaire's disease.
Dennis Biondo, executive director of the county's four* care homes for the elderly and disabled, said the infected resident has lived at Kane McKeesport since July.
"At this point, the source of the infection is unknown, but Kane McKeesport staff are working with the Health Department to actively identify any source and take appropriate remedial action," Biondo said Wednesday.
In November, county officials said that a resident of Kane McKeesport was taken to the hospital Oct. 24 and tested positve for Legionella, a water-borne bacteria that can cause a serious respiratory disease called Legionnaires' Disease.
Legionella bacteria breed in water and air conditioning systems. Most people exposed to the bacteria do not become ill, but people who are elderly or have compromised immune systems are at risk of serious infection.
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December 12, 2016 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
City and Allegheny County police and the Allegheny County Fire Marshal's Office are investigating a blaze early Monday morning that damaged five boats stored near the McKee's Point Marina.
At least three of the boats appear to be total losses, McKeesport fire Chief Jeff Tomovcsik said.
Just after 2:30 a.m., a caller to Allegheny County 9-1-1 reported hearing an "explosion" in the vicinity of Strawberry Alley and Sixth Avenue. The caller looked out the window and saw flames.
McKeesport firefighters responded and found several boats --- large cabin-cruiser type boats --- fully engulfed, Tomovcsik said.
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December 07, 2016 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
McKeesport City Council is preparing to do something it hasn't done in 25 years --- enact a property tax increase.
At a budget hearing Tuesday night, Mayor Mike Cherepko presented the city's proposed 2017 budget, including tax increases of 2 mills each on buildings and land.
That would take the city's property tax on buildings to 6.26 mills and on land to 18.5 mills.
The increase is expected to generate about $689,000 in additional revenue in 2017. "I don't want to do this," Cherepko said. "What politician wants to raise taxes? But the right choice is not always the popular choice."
The tax increase wasn't popular with the handful of residents who attended the hearing. Ken Thornton of Fawcett Plan questioned whether the administration and council have cut expenses as deeply as they could.
Cherepko said that approximately 90 percent of the city's expenses are fixed or subject to labor contracts.
"Then maybe you need to lay some people off," Thornton said. "That's what happens in the real world ... I think maybe some concessions need to be made. You can't have these unions run you out of business."
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November 30, 2016 |
By Submitted Report | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
By Christina Newmyer, Penn State Greater Allegheny
Jon Lutes loved pizza, his Italian mother, and having fun. He had a passion for working with children, travel, and his friends and family. His life, full of love and laughter, was cut short at the age of just 42.
The Monessen native died of AIDS on May 2, 1994.
Now through Dec. 2, a 12-by-12 portion of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, including a panel dedicated to Lutes, is on display in the concourse of the Penn State Greater Allegheny Student Community Center, to commemorate World AIDS Day.
The day also coincides with Jon Lutes’ birthday --- Dec. 1.
Penn State Greater Allegheny Director of Student Affairs Glenn Beech was a friend of Lutes’. They met while attending college at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania. The two had several classes together and became friends, as Beech said, due to Lutes’ likeable nature.
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November 23, 2016 |
By Submitted Report | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
West Mifflin and Duquesne residents got an early holiday present from Allegheny County when the Homeville Bridge re-opened to traffic on Monday --- one day earlier than expected.
The 781-foot-long viaduct, built in the mid-1950s, closed in August 2015 for a $10 million reconstruction project that included replacement and widening of the concrete deck from 26 to 29 feet, a new five-foot wide sidewalk, replacement of the existing hand rail with an 8-foot-tall protective fence, new lighting, structural streel repairs and re-painting of the entire structure.
It was the first major rehabilitation of the bridge since 1981, county officials said.
The bridge is owned by Allegheny County and carries two lanes of traffic and pedestrians over Lower Bull Run, Thompson Run Creek, the Union Railroad and Grant Avenue Extension. About 10,000 vehicles per day used the bridge before the closure, including emergency vehicles, school buses and 400 commercial vehicles.
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