JEANNETTE, Pa. — If you drive the main streets in Jeannette like Clay Avenue, things seem to be okay. But if you turn onto some side streets — like Second Street — snow is packed down onto the road, keeping it covered as though it hasn’t been touched by salt and plow trucks.
“I haven’t seen any town look like this, this is pretty rough,” said Brian Iwanokiw, who was driving through Jeannette.
Ethan Keedy, the city manager, said at the beginning of the year, they had their salt storage fully stocked. That’s 600 tons of salt.
On January 3, there was a snowstorm, and the city placed an order for 100 tons. They put an order in five times since.
“Until yesterday, of that 500 tons, the city has only received 100 tons of salt back from its salt supplier,” Keedy told Channel 11′s Andrew Havranek.
The city gets its salt from Compass Minerals through a contract with the state. The city said the contract states an order must be received within five to seven days.
“Their timeline that they have to meet is not there,” Keedy said.
Because of this, the city is dangerously low on salt. So it declared a public health state of emergency.
“This proclamation opens up some additional avenues the city can look into in purchasing salt, acquiring salt, and getting it on the streets,” Keedy said.
That includes reaching out to other salt suppliers, the county, and other municipalities for help. The city said it has been in talks with the supplier for Fayette County, and they’ve also talked to PennDOT and Westmoreland County about potentially helping too.
“We’re pretty confident we’re going to get salt delivered between today and tomorrow within one of these avenues,” Keedy said.
Compass Minerals sent a statement to Channel 11.
“Safely meeting the needs of our customers is of paramount importance to Compass Minerals,” the company said. “Due to the recent winter activity across the Commonwealth, salt volume requests over a short period of time have been significant. We have responded by distributing an average of more than 5,000 tons of salt daily over the past week in partnership with the appropriate state agencies and in service of numerous local municipalities. We understand the urgency of these deliveries and will continue to leverage our stable inventory and extensive depot and vendor networks to expedite additional salt shipments to help keep roadways safe.”
“Our crew does an excellent job, they go out night and day,” said Lucy Bittner of Jeannette. “But if you don’t have the supply, the salt that they don’t have, then they can’t do the job.”
The emergency declaration will run through Saturday.
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