Home >  Local News

Friday, January 24, 2003

By Jane Elizabeth, Johnna A. Pro, Carmen J. Lee, Gretchen McKay and Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Staff Writers

It would have to be a cold day in, well, Western Pennsylvania for some superintendents to cancel classes just because of the temperature.

That day arrived yesterday.

Icewater runs under these vein-like cracks in the frozen cap on the Allegheny River as the region enters Day 13 of sub-freezing temperatures. (Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette) Online graphic: Recent temperatures. Homeless shelters are bursting at the seams. Neighbors are urged to check on the elderly. Road salt is becoming a hot commodity. HOV Lanes to remain open during snow. White House warms to legislation that would provide low income Pennsylvanians with help in paying their heating bills.

Just hours after Mt. Lebanon Superintendent Glenn Smartschan told parents at a PTA meeting Wednesday night that it would need to be terrifically cold before he delayed school, he called the National Weather Service.

He was told that the wind chill factor could be as low as 20 below zero early yesterday morning. Right away, he canceled the first two hours of Thursday classes.

"It was probably the first time I've called the night before," he said yesterday. "I usually make the call at 5:30 a.m."

And that sums up the area's weather situation. Not even a meteorologist like Lou Giordano of the National Weather Service needs to get technical to explain what's been going on in the area for the past two weeks.

"It's cold. Basically, it hasn't been above freezing since Jan. 10," Giordano said yesterday. "This is day 13 of the streak. As my neighbor, Keith Cellone from across the street says, 'This is a good old-fashioned winter.' "

Yesterday's high was 11. The low was zero. The wind chill made it feel like 10 below, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a wind chill advisory for the first time this winter.

It hasn't been this cold in January since 1994, when the mean temperature for the month was 21.1 degrees. So far this month, it's 23 degrees.

The normal high for today is 35 degrees and the normal low is 19 degrees. The weather service predicts the high today will be 18 with a low near zero.

But it could be worse.

The coldest January on record in Pittsburgh was in 1977, when the mean temperature was 11.4 degrees.

But Giordano said this winter feels colder than it is because people aren't used to it. For the past five Januarys, people in Western Pennsylvania have enjoyed above-average temperatures. And last January was the warmest of the five, with a mean temperature of 35.1 degrees.

He predicts if the temperatures this month hold up -- or stay down, as the case may be -- the mean will be 22.7 degrees, nearly 5 degrees below normal.

	Homeless men gather at the entrance to the Allegheny County Severe Weather Emergency Shelter foor the Homeless on Smithfield Street. The shelter at Smithfield United Church opens at 7 p.m. when the temperature dips below 20 degrees. The extended period of cold weather is putting stress on the resources avaiable to help the homeless. (Joyce Mendelsohn, Post-Gazette)

It doesn't have to be 1977-like cold to be dangerous. State police and the Westmoreland County coroner's office are investigating the death of a woman whose frozen body was found outside the rear of her home in Seward yesterday. The body of Diane Carns, 44, was found by her boyfriend, John Garnish, shortly after 2 a.m., officials said.

Chief Deputy Coroner Paul Cycak said an autopsy was tentatively scheduled to be performed last night to determine the cause and manner of death.

Yesterday, Allegheny General Hospital treated three cases of frostbite and Mercy Hospital one. UPMC Presbyterian did not treat anyone for frostbite, but said it had one case of hypothermia Wednesday night.

That kind of danger is what has made school superintendents so cautious.

Avonworth School District superintendent James DeTrude said it was 2 to 4 degrees at 5 a.m. yesterday with a minus-7 to minus-12 degree wind chill factor "depending on whose forecast you were watching." He called for a delay.

"I didn't have to think very hard about that. My main concern was the elementary school students," he said.

While DeTrude said that three board members with school-age children approved of his decision, not all parents agree with school delays or closures and the subsequent chaos.

Single-digit temperatures don't impress Diego Pokropowicz of Ben Avon, the father of two Avonworth Elementary School first-graders.

"What do people expect?" he asked. "I mean, it's Pittsburgh and it's winter. It's supposed to be cold. It's not like we're living in Florida."

He pointed out that neighboring Northgate School District didn't delay classes and children there must walk to school.

"Parents are smart enough to bundle their kids up," he said.

In North Allegheny School District, there were no delays. The district's cut-off wind chill temperature for delays is minus-20 degrees.

It was school as usual in Riverview School District, also. Superintendent Charles Erdeljac said he goes by "the T's" when determining whether to close or delay school: the type and timing of weather; the temperature; the trucks, as in salt trucks; and toddlers.

"I always think of the toddlers," he said. "I think of the young kids because we have a number of walkers at Riverview. This morning at 5:45 I turned on the Weather Channel and saw it was 5 degrees and nary any wind."

But, he acknowledged, "This morning was a close call. We just snuck by on that one."

Pittsburgh Public School officials received some complaints that they didn't close schools or call for a delay yesterday morning.

While they have no "hard and fast criteria" for canceling classes due to weather problems, said district spokeswoman Pat Crawford, district officials take a look at road conditions and temperatures.

But the roads "were in good shape," she said, and the temperature was above zero yesterday morning, although colder weather was forecast as the day progressed.

"We took that into consideration," she said. "What good would a delay do?"

In the Bethel Park School District, officials were worried that the schoolbus engines would balk and that kids would be left waiting at bus stops.

"You never know in this weather if the buses are going to start," said district spokeswoman Vicki Fassinger. The district's two-hour delay yesterday morning "gave a head start for the transportation department."

The district's 87 buses made it out of the bus yard on Industrial Boulevard and through the district's 12 square miles with no problem, she said. Despite their best intentions, however, the school delays didn't really protect anyone from the cold.

At 9 a.m. yesterday, when most children were outside waiting for their delayed bus rides to school, the wind chill was minus 7 degrees.