As some Mon Wharf encampment residents checked on their tents Monday morning, it didn’t look much better than when they left it the night before.
Rising water levels in the Monongahela River washed over their roughly 20-tent community, submerging the entire concrete walkway they live on and a portion of the pedestrian ramp that connects to it. Before noon Monday, scattered belongings still floated in the water – a bright red kayak, a mattress, water jugs, clothing bins, a Maxwell coffee canister. Some tents were partially sunk. Others collapsed entirely.
A clothing line that runs from one side of the camp to the other remained standing, with soaked jeans, pants and shirts just barely hanging above the water.
“It’s just devastating,” one man said, as he stood near the ramp. He didn’t have much on him – just a drawstring bag and an umbrella. He evacuated once the water hit knee high, so he prioritized only a few things, including important documents.
As rising waters from the Monongahela River made its way onto land Sunday night, crews rescued one man from the encampment at the Mon Wharf, authorities said. In response to the disaster that displaced the entire encampment, the county and city activated a Code Blue Action plan, despite the temperature staying above the usual 26-degree threshold, to help people access emergency shelter.
At about 9:30 p.m. Sunday, emergency crews were alerted to an unhoused individual at the Mon Wharf encampment who appeared to be in distress from the rising floodwaters, Pittsburgh Public Safety spokesperson Emily Bourne told reporters during a Monday news conference.
Crews found that individual, an adult male, in about a foot of water and rescued him by ladder. He was uninjured and required no medical care. Crews directed him to a nearby shelter for additional services. “Out of an abundance of caution,” she said, rescue teams went tent to tent to check for others. They were found empty, Ms. Bourne said.
Crews also searched near Point Park and the Allegheny River to find anyone else who might need help. There were two individuals who were “not in active danger,” but the floodwaters were approaching their tents, she said.
Responders asked them to consider relocating and directed them to shelter services.
Just a few weeks ago, outreach workers such as Emily Powell, director of nursing operations for the Pitt Street Medicine team, were worried that rising river levels might flood out the encampment. Luckily, despite forecasts, Ms. Powell said the water didn't even reach the concrete pad where the tents were located. While a relief, it did put flooding concerns on her radar.
As director of nursing operations for the Pitt Street Medicine team, Ms. Powell does outreach every Wednesday and knows the residents of the Mon Wharf encampment well. She is worried about what their future holds.
“It's a lot of people, good people, who have fought so hard to just have a living, and now this has to happen,” Ms. Powell said. “It’s probably one of the largest, if not the largest, encampment in the city.”
Generally, she finds that this site is an ideal place for people to be. She doesn’t know what the right answer is in terms of having people relocate or not, adding that it’s an “extremely complicated” situation.
“It’s not a bad place to have an encampment,” Ms. Powell said. “It’s tucked away. It provides some shelter from the elements, it is surrounded on three sides.”
She does think that the people who live there needed something like sandbags to buy more time as the water rose. But she was glad to see the county and city use the Code Blue Action plan to expand resources.
“We realized we need a couple more resources, and maybe 26 degrees as an end all, be all, is not particularly realistic,” she said.
During the Monday news conference, Camila Alarcon, assistant director of public safety overseeing the city’s Office of Community Health and Safety, said co-response and outreach teams visited the most vulnerable communities near the water, particularly the Mon Wharf, over the past three weeks.
“The services are voluntary,” she said. “We cannot force anyone into accessing the service but we will continue to go to these places and provide our communities with resource navigation service referral and then housing options.”
In that time, three people took shelter, while others independently chose to relocate, she said.
The co-response and outreach teams visited encampments across the city again Monday to offer resources and crisis intervention.
Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt estimates that it could take months to clean up the Mon Wharf encampment and make it safe again.
“We know this time of the year, the river ebbs and flows up and down frequently, so the encampment on the Mon Wharf encampment will not be allowed to reopen … until further notice,” he said.
The forecast
A flood advisory is in effect for Downtown through Thursday.
The National Weather Service said the Ohio River at the confluence of the three rivers was expected to crest at about 22½ feet — a so-called “action” stage” — Monday morning and into the afternoon before falling throughout the rest of the week.
The rivers are expected to level off to normal by Friday.
At 19 feet, water makes its way onto the North Shore river walk between Acrisure Stadium and PNC Park and becomes 1 foot deep in the lower areas at 20 feet, according to the National Weather Service.
At 19½ feet, the Mon Wharf floods, as it began to Sunday night, and the 10th Street Bypass floods at 22 feet.
The Pittsburgh region’s long stretch of dismal and rainy weather will see a bit of a breather this week, with just a small chance of some showers in the middle and end of the week.
Last week’s rain brought Pittsburgh’s January rain total to 5.26 inches through Sunday, nearly double the normal January total of 2.7 inches.
And that’s just the rain.
The region’s 9.9 inches of snow this month also contributed to an overall soggy, dreary month. That total snowfall for the month is 2 inches below normal for January in Pittsburgh.
Downtown Pittsburgh closures
In addition to the Mon Wharf closure, the 10th Street Bypass in Downtown also closed Monday morning as PennDOT officials anticipated the rising river levels would lead it to flood later Monday.
Drivers should use Fort Duquesne Boulevard to detour.
Post-Gazette news partner KDKA-TV also reported the “bathtub” section of the Parkway East was beginning to flood ahead of the morning commute, along with the North Shore’s river walk.
First Published: January 29, 2024, 12:09 p.m.
Updated: January 30, 2024, 10:40 a.m.
