See the video link from KDKA in Pittsburgh, at the bottom.

 

The very busy Norfolk Southern mainline running through Toledo and Cleveland (via Sandusky, Elyria, Bedford, Hudson, Ravenna ... which also hosts Amtrak's daily Capitol Limited service between Chicago and Washington DC) as well as State Route 65 was blocked by a huge landslide caused by -- yes, I'm not joking -- a construction site for a new WalMart. But a Pittsburgh man who posted the following at a railroad forum said it better...

 

'Unbelievable' and 'awesome' are two adjectives that are often too-readily applied to momentous events, but this is an instance where they instead almost don't fit because they actually seem to understate such an enormous outcome.  This herniated hillside at a commercial construction site for a new Wal*Mart along the Ohio River at Emsworth, PA, downstream from Pittsburgh, has now experienced two serious failures of the fill.  As you will see (especially the aerials views) in the two video news clips at the attached KDKA-TV link, below, this collapse is simply incredible in scale.  Just last week, Jonathan, one of his school chums and I drove right by this site on PA Rt. 65, twice in one afternoon, and each time we even commented on how 'menacing' it looked to be.  While time and rain revealed that our instincts were correct, they fell far short in anticipating the incredible magnitude of what would actually happen.  This man-made construction disaster is just mind-boggling. 

.....

 

http://kdka.com/video/[email protected] (there's actually several videos/stories about the landslide available at this link)

Ironic that the intro ad is for a law firm  :-D

 

The incident is a message from God. No more Wal-Marts! They will bring doom to America! :whip:

From the KDKA site, a headline: Landslide hurting Route 65 businesses

 

Yeah, just wait 'til the Wal*Mart opens.

 

Fish in a barrel...buried alive.

 

HAPPY FOLLOWUP:

 

Another news item on the TV station's site suggests the whole Wal*Mart project may be scrapped, the EPA bringing the beatdown:

 

http://kdka.com/video/[email protected]

"Avalanche in Aisle Five!

 

Seriously, that is one incredible piece of video when they compare the aerial shots of the same scene just hours apart. I smell lawsuits coming from the City of Pittsburgh, the State and the NS Railroad.  That'll make old Sam Walton spin in his grave.

...I smell lawsuits coming from the City of Pittsburgh, the State and the NS Railroad.  That'll make old Sam Walton spin in his grave.

 

Now there's something I'd like video of.

but walmart doesn't actually own this property, right?  they are going to lease the finished product from whoever is developing it. 

 

i think the developer is on the hook for the risks here and not walmart.  hopefully someone has their risks covered, b/c this looks expensive.

And, it's outside the city of Pittsburgh. It's in Kilbuck Township, just east of where I-79 crosses the Ohio River. PennDOT will probably sue to recover some of its costs, however.

That is nuts!

Totally off-topic, but does anyone know why CBS-2 in Pittsburgh has the call-letters "KDKA"?  I thought K--- was reserved for stations west of the Mississippi River and W--- were stations east of the Mississippi?

It was the nation's first commerial radio station and was awarded it's call letters before the FCC was formed and the "East & West of the Mississippi" thing was made a rule.  There is also a KYW-TV & Radio in Philadelphia.  There are also several "W's" west of the Mississippi...like WHO in Des Moines and WOW in Omaha.

 

North America's first "radio station" actually was the Marconi Wireless station at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia.  It served primarily as a way for ships at sea to communicate with land.  In fact, the first distress calls in the Titanic disaster were received by this station.  My grandfather ran the electric power plant at the station.

You surprise me sometimes, Noozer! But I guess a recovering media sponge who has worked around the country would know lots of stuff!

The hill is still falling apart.  This is a classic example of fragmented regionalism.  A tiny municipality (700 people) wants to expand their tax base by bringing in a Wal-Mart... this hillside disaster happens... and roads and railroads critical to the entire REGION are affected.

Store Wars is an interesting movie.

FWIW, Walmart ended up cancelling the project, firing the developer, sueing everyone involved in the development, planting trees on the site, and finally started fixing the road this summer.

 

http://walmartwatch.com/blog/archives/more_on_wal_marts_lawsuit_in_kilbuck_pa/

http://walmartwatch.com/blog/archives/pennsylvania_wal_mart_finally_starts_repairs_after_kilbuck_landslide/

It was the nation's first commerial radio station and was awarded it's call letters before the FCC was formed and the "East & West of the Mississippi" thing was made a rule.  There is also a KYW-TV & Radio in Philadelphia.  There are also several "W's" west of the Mississippi...like WHO in Des Moines and WOW in Omaha.

 

North America's first "radio station" actually was the Marconi Wireless station at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia.  It served primarily as a way for ships at sea to communicate with land.  In fact, the first distress calls in the Titanic disaster were received by this station.  My grandfather ran the electric power plant at the station.

 

Revisiting this item on a couple of accounts -

 

My dad was a teenager on a farm in Northeastern Indiana when KDKA went on the air. He and his dad were fascinated with new technology, and they ordered a succession of mail-order crystal radio kits that they built at home. Crystal radios required no external power source, and used headphones instead of a speaker. Dad said that in Saturday nights some of the neighbors would come over and they'd take turns passing the headphones around. Later they built a kit that had an amplifier and loudspeaker. It used packs of series-connected D-cell flashlight batteries to power the amplifier.

 

I had seen an old photo that showed a wire stretched overhead between the house and one of the farm buildings, and didn't know what that might have been because at the time they had no electricity or telephone. It was an antenna for the radio. My brother still has one of those crystal radios.

 

For a captivating account of the development and implementation of Marconi's wireless radio for communication between ships and shore stations, read Erik Larson's Thunderstruck.

FWIW, Walmart ended up cancelling the project, firing the developer, sueing everyone involved in the development, planting trees on the site, and finally started fixing the road this summer.

 

http://walmartwatch.com/blog/archives/more_on_wal_marts_lawsuit_in_kilbuck_pa/

http://walmartwatch.com/blog/archives/pennsylvania_wal_mart_finally_starts_repairs_after_kilbuck_landslide/

 

I live about 1,000 feet away from that site and was headed home on that road when the landslide occurred. Given the large amount of construction activity at the site and the fact that they were on a fast track and working practically 24 hours a day and given that Ohio River Boulevard is heavily travelled it was a miracle that no one was hurt or killed.

 

Ironically, a local citizens group opposed to the development for quality of life reasons had an engineering study done which showed that this was likely to occur. The municipality of Kilbuck had waived over 71 zoning and land use requirements in order to be able to grant a building permit. The state Department of Transportation allowed the developer to use the developer's numbers for the estimated traffic, instead of the industry standard "Traffic Impact" data in order to keep the developers from having to make any significant changes to the road, in spite of the fact that the developers numbers would have made that Wal-Mart one of the poorest performing Wal-Marts in the state.

 

The state Department of Environmental Protection and the Allegheny County Health Department approved the site tapping into Emsworth's sewage system even though the pumping station did not have the capacity and, even though under the best assumptions, a failure of that pumping station would have resulted in thousands of gallons of raw sewage pouring into a local creek. The DEP also did not require a retention pond for the run-off (their failure to include this in a Sam's Club development along the same creek a few miles up resulted in such flooding that in September of 2004 when the rains from Hurricane Ivan hit the region over 25 cars at a local used car dealer which was perched on a land fill adjacent to the creek were washed into the creek spilling fuel and shearing off bridge abutments and manholes from the storm sewer buried under the creek).

 

During the rebuild of that sewer system it was discovered that Emsworth, which had been pressured by the DEP to provide sewage access for the Wal-Mart, was actually illegally tapping into a sewer system belonging to another municipality.

 

All an all it was an illustrative case of how elected officials, in a desperate attempt to allow Kilbuck some tax relief, waived the very protections that they had put into place to prevent such an occurrence, thereby essentially causing it to happen.

 

Sounds like a clusterfuck all the way around -- Third World, almost.

^ Well, the way things are now, we are pretty close to a Third World country -- we have a non-comprehensive transportation system, massive abandonments, an increasingly unhealthy citizenry, things are perennially under construction, decaying infrastructure, almost-temporary housing materials, etc. 

^ Well, the way things are now, we are pretty close to a Third World country -- we have a non-comprehensive transportation system, massive abandonments, an increasingly unhealthy citizenry, things are perennially under construction, decaying infrastructure, almost-temporary housing materials, etc. 

... and a widening gulf between the affluent/influential and the poor/powerless, as the stratification of wealth continues.

^ Well, the way things are now, we are pretty close to a Third World country -- we have a non-comprehensive transportation system, massive abandonments, an increasingly unhealthy citizenry, things are perennially under construction, decaying infrastructure, almost-temporary housing materials, etc.

 

All right now.  Let's not overdramaticize things.  Spend some time in a less developed country--we're nowhere close.

FWIW, Walmart ended up cancelling the project, firing the developer, sueing everyone involved in the development, planting trees on the site, and finally started fixing the road this summer.

 

http://walmartwatch.com/blog/archives/more_on_wal_marts_lawsuit_in_kilbuck_pa/

http://walmartwatch.com/blog/archives/pennsylvania_wal_mart_finally_starts_repairs_after_kilbuck_landslide/

 

I live about 1,000 feet away from that site and was headed home on that road when the landslide occurred. Given the large amount of construction activity at the site and the fact that they were on a fast track and working practically 24 hours a day and given that Ohio River Boulevard is heavily travelled it was a miracle that no one was hurt or killed.

 

Ironically, a local citizens group opposed to the development for quality of life reasons had an engineering study done which showed that this was likely to occur. The municipality of Kilbuck had waived over 71 zoning and land use requirements in order to be able to grant a building permit. The state Department of Transportation allowed the developer to use the developer's numbers for the estimated traffic, instead of the industry standard "Traffic Impact" data in order to keep the developers from having to make any significant changes to the road, in spite of the fact that the developers numbers would have made that Wal-Mart one of the poorest performing Wal-Marts in the state.

 

The state Department of Environmental Protection and the Allegheny County Health Department approved the site tapping into Emsworth's sewage system even though the pumping station did not have the capacity and, even though under the best assumptions, a failure of that pumping station would have resulted in thousands of gallons of raw sewage pouring into a local creek. The DEP also did not require a retention pond for the run-off (their failure to include this in a Sam's Club development along the same creek a few miles up resulted in such flooding that in September of 2004 when the rains from Hurricane Ivan hit the region over 25 cars at a local used car dealer which was perched on a land fill adjacent to the creek were washed into the creek spilling fuel and shearing off bridge abutments and manholes from the storm sewer buried under the creek).

 

During the rebuild of that sewer system it was discovered that Emsworth, which had been pressured by the DEP to provide sewage access for the Wal-Mart, was actually illegally tapping into a sewer system belonging to another municipality.

 

All an all it was an illustrative case of how elected officials, in a desperate attempt to allow Kilbuck some tax relief, waived the very protections that they had put into place to prevent such an occurrence, thereby essentially causing it to happen.

 

 

When will people learn the nonsense behind this pervasive propaganda-chamber driven myth that "Sprawl-Mart"..and "sprawl" in general will save them from economic disaster! Sometimes we might want to heed the warnings of the whistle blowers in the community who go through great lengths doing the homework and math no one wants to do.... before jumping on the snake oil bandwagon for the sake of saving 5 cents on Fruit-Of-The Looms and Cheetos!

^ Well, the way things are now, we are pretty close to a Third World country -- we have a non-comprehensive transportation system, massive abandonments, an increasingly unhealthy citizenry, things are perennially under construction, decaying infrastructure, almost-temporary housing materials, etc. 

... and a widening gulf between the affluent/influential and the poor/powerless, as the stratification of wealth continues.

 

Agreed totally... All the more reason to find another way than to keep having  to rely on"big brother corporation"and all their empty promises to run in and save the day for the community like The Lone Ranger. Let's re-focus on creating an economic landscape/environment that fosters the growth of smaller enterprises, family owned businesses, and stakeholders in the community. Create an environment that panders and caters to the smaller enterprises more..the stakeholders, instead of only the shareholders. There is a big difference. That is how things started and maybe it is time to get back to some basics.