Extra! Extra! Pittsburgh Old Media Adds Value!

Our compliments to both Mayor Ravenstahl and the Post-Gazette, two names that are not often praised.

Kudos to Mayor Ravenstahl, who did the right thing and attended one of the funerals of the people who drowned in the rain on his street. (snark: Luke sorta likes going to funerals, once he got a new job after going to a funeral.) Props to the Post-Gazette, who performed a public service and contributed to the discussion several times in today's paper.

Brian O'Neill did a marvelous job of adding historical detail and human perspective in his article, The Washington Boulevard disaster: Now we must Act. He provides historical facts not available to new-media Google, shifts into life-and-justice values, and ends with a clear call to action; we see too few Writers these days and we are consistently pleased by Mr. O'Neill's work.

We are enamored of Joe Smydo's article (and headline) Marked absences: Mayor Ravenstahl criticized for missing multiple major events. Mayoral defenders attempt to narrow the argument by saying the mayor's got a cellphone, it's an invasion of His privacy and family life, and it's a security risk if His whereabouts are known. The true point comes more from sampling theory than from knee-jerk parochialism; if somebody in a position of responsibility is frequently out of town and unavailable when random events occur, then they're probably out of town and unavailable more than they should be, if they're going to stay in that position.

Jonathan D. Silver wrote a great article, teased on the front page as "Other cities have flash flood alert systems", and headlined as "Flash flood warnings systems are costly" in the interior. The article approaches the question, "How come people in other North American cities don't drown in the rain?"

Paging Rich Lord, Chris Young, Chris Potter;
Call to Action for Mr. Lord, Mr. Young, Mr. Potter: We particularly appreciate the photo caption in Silver's article, Mud-covered vehicles destroyed in the Washington Boulevard flooding were towed to the Pittsburgh Police Zone 5 Police Station, and we wish that Some Journalist would consider why the Zone 5 parking lots were empty - namely, the report that police dispatchers have been in the habit of warning employees to move their cars when flooding was imminent, ignoring the safety of the people on the streets.

Bravo, Post-Gazette, and chapeau Messrs. O'Neill, Smydo, and Silver.

Google Map Kills Four Area Residents

In the spirit of Milan Kundera, this post is dedicated to our memory of Chicago's fictional young Antanas Rudkus, who drowned when he fell off a sidewalk into a deep puddle. That could never happen here, not today. Perhaps there is very little new under the sun.

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Pittsburgh has been at a loss to explain Friday's deaths of four area residents, who drowned in rain while driving on routine city thoroughfares.

A host of city bureaus - Public Safety, Public Works, Emergency Readiness, PWSA, Alcosan - all express their regret at the loss of life and wonder what those people were doing, driving on the streets in the rain. Today's press conference shed light on an unexpected possible cause.

At a hastily called press conference, Mayor Ravenstahl reports that computer printouts found in both victim's vehicles indicate that Google Maps directed them to drive through the flooded route.



Mayor Ravenstahl is calling on Pittsburgh's tech community to assist residents in identifying unsafe Google directions that may put the resident in harm's way, with possibly fatal results. "We shouldn't lose any more people to Google's dangerous directions", he said. "Furthermore, over a year ago we asked Google to bring their big pipes to Pittsburgh, and there's no action yet. I'm not saying that their big pipes would have definitely prevented this tragic flooding; I'm just saying."




Mayoral spokesperson Joanna Doven said her smartphone research at a SouthSide WiFi hotspot shows that Google Maps is also offering directions in close proximity to Tepco's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which became radioactive months ago.

"This may be the tip of the tsunami", said Mayor Ravenstahl. "I think it's important for people to be cautious about where the Google might be taking them, and consider using the tried-and-true Colored Belts - they're for everybody, really - to safely drive around Pittsburgh. My family has used them for years, and nobody's ever drowned in the rain on the Red Belt, I think."

No Google spokesperson was available for comment.

Most Livable Asterisk: Pittsburgh and Places Rated

Several media outlets announced Saturday that they are revising their most recent evaluations of Pittsburgh as a "most livable city" after four people drowned in rain while driving on city streets on Friday.

Forbes reporter Francesca Levy, who wrote their 2011 report choosing Pittsburgh as the country's Most Livable City, posted a message on Twitter: "plan on revising Most-Livable report, adding 'deadly rain' as a ninth factor. Who knew?"

David Savageau, who has been compiling the "Places Rated Almanac" since 1981, posted on his blog: "I am flummoxed by the revelation that rainfall can be fatal in Pittsburgh - not on those magnificent three rivers or the fabulous bike trails, but on a paved city street?"

Savageau went on to say, "It can't be the nature of rain - it's been raining in American cities since at least the 1860's. Other cities at the top of the list - Seattle, San Francisco, Portland - these are all cities with frequent rain, a high quality of life, and they seem to be able to avoid rain fatalities. There must be something different in Pittsburgh. Maybe it's acid rain?"


The Economist Intelligence Unit -- which publishes numerous surveys and studies for paying clients -- has ranked Pittsburgh first in U.S. livability ratings since it started measuring them in 2005, said Jon Copestake, editor of the survey. "I daresay we're going to have to make an adjustment in light of the recent disclosure of deadly rainfall in the Pittsburgh metro area. For the time being, we're adding an asterisk to our results."

Key personnel at the Department of Public Works and the Department of Public Safety were not available for comment; they were working weekend overtime on location for "Dark Knight Rising", which is a key distraction from the city's problems strategic initiative of the Ravenstahl administration.

Mayoral spokesperson Joanna Doven commented via text message early Sunday morning: "Mayor attributes problem to Council's budget obsession; Home Rule charter may not assign responsibility for rainfall, action by Legislature may be needed".

Closer to home, AccuWeather reports that Monday, August 29th has a 60% chance of rain and thunderstorms.

Pittsburgh's Office of Emergency Management reports that they intend to get in front of the situation by pre-positioning teams of grief counselors in pontoon boats parked on trailers in the vicinity of Washington Blvd and Allegheny River Blvd.

In order to gain an understanding of what future unfortunate citizens may experience during the rain, Team Ravenstahl is arranging a field trip to Ohiopyle and they will convey their experiences and emotions to the GCT (grief counseling team).

A Seminal Failure of Government: Betting on the Come with Public Safety

Friday August 20, it rained in Pittsburgh and three four people died. (updated) From the Post-Gazette:

A woman and two children were killed and an elderly woman was missing Friday night after a flash flood -- with rushing water 9 feet deep in some places -- swept over Washington Boulevard in Highland Park/Lincoln-Lemington during rush hour.

This sort of thing isn't supposed to happen here - sure, folks in Mumbai die when it rains, but not here in the Good Old Homeland. It's just an Act Of God, force majuere, nothing to see here, move on, our sympathy to the families, update your Facebook, Here we go Steelers, here we go.




Is it really an Act of God? The same thing happened at the same location in July.



This is not three four people who got killed while boating (a risky activity subject to the forces of nature). This is not three four people who got killed while hiking through the wilderness. This is three four people, citizens, taxpayers, who drowned in rain on a main public street during Friday rush hour.

There's a Department of Public Works that is supposed to design, build, and fix drainage systems. There's a Department of Public Safety that is supposed to protect the populace. There's annual Office of Emergency Management; they are supposed to ensure readiness for infrequent events. There are elected officials (Mayor Luke Ravenstahl) who are accountable to the voters for the performance of the city departments (DPW, Safety) under their authority.

If all those agencies and officials were focused on guaranteeing citizen's lives - if they were ensuring that the public would be safe even in 100-year events - instead of simply betting on the come and being comfortable that we're probably going to be okay most of the time, then they'd close those few streets when it was raining, until such time as the drainage was improved. Simple solution.

It can't be too difficult to close a street. They seem to be able to do it whenever a VIP or a corporation wants it closed, regardless of the impact. Ensuring public safety by closing the street when it rains would call attention to their shortcomings and priorities, so instead they leave the people to take their chances. It's a reverse lottery, run by the government. Turns out you can gamble on both sides of the river. Oops, you won - sucks to be you.

The city knows that flooding is likely at that location in heavy rain, the decision makers haven't taken any action to improve the situation, and so the constraints of budgets and political desire abandon people in favor of higher priorities.

Let's just acknowledge that the City's priority has been filming a movie and not ensuring the safety of citizens. By the way, who investigates the liability for these deaths? Couldn't be somebody who also works for the Mayor, could it? And where was Luke at 5pm on Friday?

Shifting into meta, let's also anticipate that the upcoming national austerity, reduced oversight and de-regulation, and dogmatic beast-starving are going to produce a lot more of these unnecessary tragedies.

Luke Ravenstahl Signature Asset

Interesting article in the Pittsburgh paper today about a new vision statement, actually written by Mayor Luke Ravenstahl Himself.

It must have been written by Luke Ravenstahl, because he actually signed it:

Welcome to the future of Pittsburgh's Allegheny Riverfront! On this website you'll find the vision plan that represents the efforts of hundreds of neighborhood stakeholders working together to create a market-based vision for the future of the Allegheny Riverfront.

Pittsburgh's rivers rank among our greatest assets. The Allegheny Riverfront represents an incredible opportunity for our city to create a green, regenerative riverfront corridor which will serve not only as an asset for existing residents, but as an international model of sustainable riverfront development that will create jobs and further enhance Pittsburgh's reputation as "Most Livable City."

You can analyze text for repeated words to help discern what the writer is interested in. These words are used more than once:

• riverfront (4)
• asset (2)
• future (2)
• vision (2)

So I think Luke's "future vision" is about "riverfront assets", which makes sense now that the parking thing is over.

I know what you're thinking, or at least what you're probably thinking if you're the average Wifi-sniffing knowier-than-thou blog reader type - Hey, Luke Ravenstahl didn't write that! Luke Ravenstahl is the mayor, he's not a writer! To people like you I say, Oh No, Dear Reader - Luke wouldn't affix his good name and signature so prominently on something he didn't play a big part in writing.

If he signed it, he wrote it. That's the way they roll at North Catholic, Mercyhurst College, the University of Pittsburgh, and Washington and Jefferson College. Hardest twelve years of Luke's life.

When I read the document and see that it's a plan to transfer parcels of decroted land to developers and other cool guys who will turn them into regenerative assets and then resell them to other cool market-based guys, I can only say: That's the sort of thing that Our Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is all about. And if it takes tax incentives to induce those guys to take our vacant riverfront assets, then Luke will do what it takes.

I'm only concerned about the risk that Luke Ravenstahl is taking. He's taking one for the team -- by which I mean he's putting his own signature on the web, and in eye-catching full color, no less. It's much nicer than the low-res, black-white thing that's already online. It's like, Luke's Signature 2.0

In the current environment, where nasty subversive anarchists make up scurrilous press releases that look good but have the wrong words on them, it's pretty risky putting an image of your signature on the web. Most people wouldn't do that, or they'd do some technomage CMU-type stuff to protect it.

But not our gutsy Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. He's willing to take risks to make us stronger. That's why I'm sure he wrote this vision statement himself; if his loyal and effective staff was involved, there's no way those professionals would let him put his signature image on teh web.

I really hope that this doesn't come up in the future. I'd hate to see this image abused by a malcontent, or used on another fake press release announcing something silly like justice for Jordan Miles.

I'd especially hate it if people started linking to this URL:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ0ukZEgAgEG7bRvl66am7Yy6BXRMfDHsjnWKT74zpEZk2GEN-qYqPd7Gv_C_dysZlAa7QW6Y9HgI75ZJmNktYB83-gvYreIUMKQEWfmY53P3OkLjDKut-204pFV0QCLMZMD4D/s1600/luke-ravenstahl.jpg
using TITLE or ALT text that says, 'Luke Ravenstahl'.

Because then whenever those anarchists search Google Images for 'Luke Ravenstahl', they'll find his full-color high-res signature -- and that would be a tragedy. Or, as Luke Himself would say, The potential downside of future misuse of this signature asset would be regenerative waterfront.