PITTSBURGH — The floodgates on Washington Boulevard and Allegheny River Boulevard were not working properly on Monday.
Police were forced to move in and block the typically flood-prone area after one of the three gates wouldn’t deploy.
An officer even climbed up and manually tried to force the gate down.
“There is a backup system that he tried to lower it manually which is a push button that is up in the box that he was trying to lower and it didn't work,” said Wendell Hissrich, director of Public Safety.
Pittsburgh police shut down the road around 3:20 p.m. on Monday, according to Public Information Officer Sonya Toler.
The gates were tested approximately six weeks ago and everything worked as expected, according to Hissrich.
Public Safety Officials said floodwaters weren’t high enough to trigger the sensor and even the manual efforts didn’t work.
On Tuesday, engineers are still trying to pinpoint what the problem is. City officials said they might have to look at a different system all together.
“Is it a power failure? Is it a wireless communication failure? Do we need to take a look at a different connection system?” said Guy Costa, chief operations officer.
The electronic sensors didn’t trigger the gate to go down. When Zone 5 police manually hit the button to trigger the gate, it still did not work.
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“Yesterday, when the system should’ve worked properly, it didn’t,” Guy said.
To keep drivers safe in the area, even if the gates do go down, police will always be there due to drivers sometimes not paying attention and going around the gates.
According to Public Safety, the system functioned on the Negley Run and Highland Drive side earlier Monday and the gate deployed properly. Public Safety said for some reason, the gate on Washington Boulevard and Allegheny Boulevard did not operate effectively.
It could possibly be linked to a pole being knocked down along Washington Boulevard earlier Monday unrelated to the weather. Public safety officials are unsure if the pole had anything to do with it.
The mayor's office issued a statement on behalf of the Public Works Department stating:
"As a result of the heavy rain, the road needed to be closed because of debris and mud coming from one of the hillsides along Washington Boulevard so the AWS System was activated manually. The automatic sensors did not trigger because this was not a flooding situation. Police are assisting and monitoring the closure to ensure the safety of all involved, and to be sure that motorists do not enter the roadway while it is closed. Public Safety and Public Works crews are on site. When the debris is cleared, the gates will be lifted and the roadway will be reopened."
The floodgate system was added along Washington Boulevard after severe flooding led to the deaths of four people. The project costed about $450,000 and was put in by PennDOT in 2014.
In August 2016, the gates failed again and several people had to be rescued from flood waters. This past March, the city took over the gates from PennDOT and spent $55,000 on upgrades.
"This project was a failure from the start. Having PennDOT install it and turn over the system without any maintenance plan is a failure,” said Councilman Dan Gilman.
Tanner Eisenman, a local driver, said the city got lucky this time.
"It's disappointing that they put that in and they took all that time and that it's supposed to save lives, but whenever it comes time to use it, it doesn't work and it could be a repeat of history,” Eisenman said.