"We are lucky we are not burying firefighters," Somerset County, PA, Commissioner Says

GARRETT, Pa. – Frustrated by complications that arose during a June 4 firefight in the Allegheny Mountain Tunnel, the Somerset County commissioners are sending a formal request to the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission asking for an after-action review of the emergency response to the incident.

“We are lucky we are not burying firefighters,” Commissioner Irv Kimmel Jr. said.

Commissioners Kimmel, Pamela Tokar-Ickes and Brian Fochtman alleged that the Turnpike Commission’s emergency water system inside the tunnel had been neglected, that the Turnpike’s communications system during the emergency was problematic, and also that the tunnel lacked adequate on-site equipment to ventilate the tunnel during the firefight.

The commissioners unanimously approved sending a formal letter to the Turnpike Commission Tuesday during a meeting held at the Garrett Borough municipal building.

The letter, provided to The Tribune-Democrat, urges an after-action review with participation from all responding fire departments and law enforcement officials who were dispatched to the scene of the incident nearly two weeks ago.

“To our knowledge, the commission has not begun an after-action review, and we feel it is in the interest of public safety and the safety of emergency responders,” Tokar-Ickes said.

Fochtman said problems are inevitable with an incident of that magnitude.

“We are asking the Turnpike to deal with these issues so this doesn’t happen again,” he said.

A vehicle fire inside the tunnel was reported to Somerset County 911 officials at approximately 8:15 p.m. June 4 as an “explosion” involving a commercial vehicle. A state police release to media indicated that the commercial vehicle’s driver suffered a medical emergency and was flown by medical helicopter for treatment.

Charter buses were dispatched to the accident scene to transport 150 stranded people to a safe location, a nearby Turnpike maintenance facility.

The tunnel’s pair of tubes were closed to traffic in both directions shortly after 9 p.m. June 4 due to the fire in the westbound tunnel. The eastbound tunnel reopened at about 3:20 a.m. the day after the accident, with traffic in both directions being funneled through that tube until the westbound tunnel reopened later that afternoon.

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