McKeesport unveils new fire rescue boat
McKeesport Fire Department has a new weapon in its arsenal — a 26-foot-long, 8 1/2-foot-wide river patrol boat.
“It will ride 2-4, depending on what the incident requires,” city fire Capt. Jim Shields said at an unveiling of the boat last week at No. 2 fire station along Eden Park Boulevard.
Chief Kevin Lust said the new boat will serve from “lock to lock and up the Yough” on the rivers that meet at McKees Point.
That's from Braddock Lock and Dam No. 2 to the soon-to-be-removed Elizabeth Lock and Dam No. 3 on the Monongahela River, as well as the often-shallow waters of the Youghiogheny.
“It is going to be a plus for the whole Mon Valley,” Mayor Regis T. McLaughlin said.
As council president, the interim mayor played an integral part in getting the boat, which will utilize a new team of 15 scuba divers from the police and fire departments as well as personnel from McKeesport Ambulance Rescue Service.
“We went from oars to a couple of motors,” state Sen. James R. Brewster, D-McKeesport, said to Deputy Chief Chuck Margliotti, pointing at a red boat labeled “Our Town,” hanging on a wall not far from the new boat.
Brewster and McLaughlin were among a group of local officials and fire officers examining the boat that arrived from California last month, on the day before its maiden voyage on the Twin Rivers.
“We had to get some money together,” McLaughlin recalled. Specifically, the city agreed to pay $146,925.65 for the boat, with payments coming out of Community Development Block Grant funds.
“(Allegheny County Emergency Services Chief) Bob Full was very instrumental,” he said. “UPMC has helped as well.”
Lust said the state emergency services Region 13, headed by Full, provided $70,000 in equipment that could be utilized anywhere in a 13-county coverage area that extends from Mercer to Somerset.
“We were promised a year and a half ago that we would get a boat,” Margliotti said. “The mayor (Brewster) and city council (then-president McLaughlin and his colleagues) lived up to that promise.”
That included council approval in June of a contract with Harbor Guard Boats Inc. of Corona, Calif., for a Firehawk 2426 boat put together per MFD specifications.
“This has two 300 horsepower jet drive motors,” Margliotti said. “You do not have anything below the boat that can rip up.”
There's actually not much under the boat at all. Margliotti said the boat can operate in 16-18 inches of water.
“You look at the back of this, there's no propeller,” Margliotti pointed out.
One of the jets that take the place of propellers can draw water from the river if needed. Lust said that could prove useful for such locations as Boswell Oil along the Dravosburg banks of the Mon.
“We're going to participate in drills this summer with some of the surrounding municipalities,” Margliotti said.
“I think Pittsburgh is happy we got it, too,” McLaughlin said. Pittsburgh also has a rescue service on its three rivers.
It's not the first time the city has utilized the federal CD funding for public safety needs.
A year ago, the city received the truck known in the No. 2 station as Engine 190.
The Seagrave Marauder II Pumper, purchased for $498,000 from Seagrave Fire Apparatus LLC in Clintonville, Wisc., also was built to MFD specifications.
Previously, the city utilized six annual payments of $84,000 toward a fire truck. In the CD budget for the new year, the city was able to craft an $89,000 payment split between the new truck and the boat.
