PENN HILLS, Pa. — A senior high-rise in Penn Hills was evacuated on Thursday after the sprinkler system caused flooding inside the building.
Fire crews were called to the Penn Arbor Apartments on Frankstown Road around 3:30 a.m. for a water flow alarm.
Diane Fitzhenry, Penn Hills EMS director and deputy emergency management coordinator, said a grease fire occurred in a kitchen on the ninth floor, causing the sprinkler system to go off.
Fitzhenry said damage to the sprinkler heads resulted in flooding in apartments from the ninth floor all the way down to the main floor. There are around 124 units in the building.
Due to the flooding and the sprinkler system being non-functional, Fitzhenry said it was best to evacuate residents and move them to a safe location. Residents were then moved to the Penn Hills Senior Center, with assistance from Pittsburgh Regional Transit buses.
“With all the flooding and the fact that the sprinkler system is not functioning at this point, and the fact that the people in this building are elderly, a lot of them are non-ambulatory, it was in their best interest, we felt, to evacuate the building and move them to a safe location,” Fitzhenry said.
There’s no timeframe for when repairs will be finished, so that residents can move back in.
One man living inside the building says he ran to the other floors to make sure everyone was out safe.
“I went to every floor to see if everyone was OK and let them know. Some of them didn’t hear the alarm,” he said. “It was something that needed to be done. Some people say, ‘That’s a big deal.’ No, it ain’t a big deal. That was something that needed to be done.”
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