US Route 30 Collapse: Pittsburgh Highway To Be Closed For Months

EAST PITTSBURGH, PA — U.S. Route 30 in East Pittsburgh will be closed for months after part of the roadway plunged roughly 40 feet down a steep hillside. Part of the highway abruptly buckled and collapsed above Electric Avenue around 6 a.m. Saturday, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

A wall above the road broke, Cheryl Moon-Sirianni, PennDOT district 11 executive told reporters. Mud, rocks and debris fell along with it.

Route 30 is a major artery that links Parkway East to North Versailles, East McKeesport and North Huntingdon. The highway will remain shuttered in both directions for at least two months as workers try to figure out how best to repair it, Moon-Sirianni said.

Power lines were severed and natural gas pipelines ruptured, the newspaper said.

The landslide also damaged an apartment building and threatened several others, the Tribune-Review reported. State transportation figures indicate more than 10,000 vehicles use that section of the highway every day, multiple media outlets said.

Since early March, PennDOT inspectors had been examining section of the highway roughly the size of a football field, the Post-Gazette said. PennDOT limited traffic last week before ultimately closing the entire highway on Friday.

Moon-Sirianni said inspectors were specifically looking at movement under the highway several days before the collapse. They did not believe a landslide was behind the movement.

“It was sinking before, but we never imagined it was a landslide,” Moon-Sirianni told reporters.

More than 30 residents were evacuated from their homes before and after the landslide, she said.

Moon-Sirianni told the residents staying at the Comfort Inn in Wilkins they probably wouldn't be able to recover any of their items. PennDOT would look into possibly reimbursing them, she said.

Numerous displaced residents of the Electric Avenue Apartments were lodged at the hotel. Some told the Post-Gazette they lost everything save for the clothes on their backs and questioned why they weren't told to evacuate earlier so they'd have time to pack up their belongings.

“Why didn’t they do something?” said Roberta Leonard. “I have nothing.”

“I’d rather get my stuff back than the money,” said musician Larry Robinson. The 67-year-old said he lost four guitars, two amplifiers and a PA system.

#BREAKING NEWS: A section of Route 30 has collapsed in East Pittsburgh, PA pic.twitter.com/V7cAyABeCR
— NewsAlertHQ (@NewsAlertHQ) April 7, 2018

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