"There are a lot of people who are involved and responsible here," said City Councilman Patrick Dowd, who sits on the PWSA board. "In my mind, we're all responsible. The city is responsible for water before it enters the sewer. PWSA is responsible for water in its pipes that it conveys to" the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority.
The number of people who died in the flooding increased to four Saturday when searchers found the body of Mary Saflin, 72, of Oakmont, along the shore of the Allegheny River near Washington Boulevard.
Investigators said they believed she had gotten out of her car in the flood and had been drawn into a storm sewer near the road.
The bodies of Kimberly Griffith, 45, of Plum, and her daughters Brenna, 12, and Mikaela, 8, were found Friday night in their car, which was submerged in nine feet of water around 4 p.m. Friday.
Three Pittsburgh police officers and Raymond DeMichiei, deputy director of the Pittsburgh Office of Emergency Management, who used two rowboats commandeered from a nearby marina, and River Rescue personnel rescued 15 people who were clinging to trees or stranded on the roofs of their vehicles.
Eighteen vehicles were recovered when the water receded. Officials searched Friday night and Saturday morning for Saflin, who had been talking to her daughter on the phone before the line went dead.
What makes Friday's flood, and a similar one July 18, more troubling is that none of the governmental bodies involved - the PWSA, Alcosan, and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation - is sure what caused the problem in either instance or how to fix it.
PennDot said that it was responsible only for the road surfaces there, but that it had been talking about some improvements to help prevent flooding.
Alcosan said it was beginning work on $2 billion worth of projects to help alleviate flooding, but that it didn't know if anything could be done to help stop a flood as massive as Friday's.
