Most Popular Videos Featured On KDKA.com
Feb 20, 2009 9:12 pm US/Eastern
Allegheny County Jail Needs Repairs
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
-
-
The jail is showing serious signs of falling apart – the result of years of neglect and poor maintenance.
KDKA
When the Allegheny County Jail opened, it was $10 million over budget and was almost immediately the scene of falling ceilings and bursting pipes.
But 14 years later, the jail is showing serious signs of falling apart – the result of years of neglect and poor maintenance.
"When they finished constructing the building, they should have had an on-going maintenance program and anything that wasn't up to standard should have been fixed and I don't know if they did that or not but it's being fixed now," Warden Ramon Rustin said.
Just last month, the sprinkler system burst. In addition to drowning an elevator shaft and the ground floor employee entrance, it flooded the parking lot which turned into an ice rink in the cold weather.
The week before, winds blew off part of the jail's roof and rain poured down into an inmate pod and needed to be captured in big garbage drums.
What happened back in November was the worst incident of all. A water main broke off the fifth floor, sending a waterfall cascading through the entire building – destroying one elevator and several computers.
Rustin says since becoming warden five years ago, he's been playing catch up in confronting corrosion and other maintenance problems.
"So now we've got a plan that we're going into any crawl space and anything that's rusted and need to be replaced we're going to replace it," he said.
The warden has no dollar estimate but recent incidents will cost the county in the hundreds of thousands and if he is to replace the roof and tackle all the other maintenance problems, that bill could stretch into the millions.
But he says ignoring the problems could cost more.
"You have to be prepared for worst case scenarios in our business you know and I think thankfully my bosses -- the county executive and the county manager said, 'Hey, if you have to get it fixed go ahead and fix it,'" Rustin said.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Pittsburgh Festivities Kickoff Holidays
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Reporting
