IN TIMES OF NEED, COMMUNITY MEMBERS STEPPED UP TO HELP THE RESIDENTS OF DOUGLAS PLAZA, IN WILKINSBURG. IN THE PHOTO AT LEFT, RONNETTE DIXON IS PICTURED WITH DOUGLAS PLAZA RESIDENT CHRISTOPHER JENKINS. AT RIGHT, ASHLEY BURKE IS PICTURED WITH DOUGLAS PLAZA RESIDENT PERNELL FERGUSON. DIXON AND BURKE BROUGHT HOT MEALS TO THE RESIDENTS ON SUNDAY, MAY 4. (PHOTOS BY ROB TAYLOR JR.)
The electric has been restored to the Douglas Plaza Apartments in Wilkinsburg.
But the damage has already been done.
On Tuesday, April 29, the City of Pittsburgh took a direct hit from a powerful set of storms that sent trees into the streets and onto homes and power lines, caused roofs to blow off homes and businesses, and even caused three deaths in the region, including a man who was electrocuted on the South Side after trying to remove a live wire from his truck with a stick.
Entire neighborhoods were without power, like Homewood, parts of the North Side, East Hills, and municipalities like Penn Hills, East Pittsburgh and Wilkinsburg.
Duquesne Light worked to restore power, but the storms were “unprecedented,” as DLC representatives kept calling them, and it was something the company had never faced before. Tuesday evening, April 29, more than 400,000 people in the region were without power, including 140,000 in Pittsburgh.
Day after day, power was restored to residents. But in the majority-Black Douglas Plaza Apartments, a set of two apartment buildings where seniors reside on Laketon Road in Wilkinsburg, the power seemingly took forever to come back on.
The parking lot, the buildings, were pitch black. And the hundreds of residents who live there were left to fend for themselves.
Finally, by Friday, May 2, concerned citizens like Brittani Baker called local media outlets to express her frustration with the lack of electricity for the seniors in the buildings. Television stations and newspapers, including the New Pittsburgh Courier, traveled to the apartments to see the dire situation for themselves.
“When you go in the building, these are definitely your most vulnerable people in every aspect, and you can see why they’re doing them like that, because they feel like there’s nobody to speak up for them,” said Amber Sloan, a local community activist with her own organization, Made It (Making Alternative Decisions Effectively Impacting Teens). Sloan spoke with the Courier on Sunday, May 4, as her friends, Ashley Burke and Ronnette Dixon, brought hot food to the apartments to feed to the residents for free. The food included chicken, green beans, dinner rolls, mashed potatoes and more.
“We know what’s going on,” Sloan said. “I think it’s f___ up.”
Courier calls to Douglas Plaza Apartments management went unanswered.
A Douglas Plaza resident named Frank, who declined to give his last name, told the Courier that “Life is better than this. God didn’t give us life for this b___s___ we gotta go through.”
Frank added: “You still want your rent, and didn’t even know where the generator was at. Somebody needs to get on them (management), senators need to come here and get on these people.”
Plenty of residents told the Courier that generators are on the property, but haven’t worked in years.
Pernell Ferguson, 70, was blunt in his opinion to the Courier. “They (management),” in Ferguson’s estimation, wanted the residents “to die.”
Ferguson said he felt that way because residents’ oxygen supply was cut off due to the power being out, and Ferguson said he called 9-1-1 a few times so that oxygen could be brought to the residents. “I saved a couple people’s lives by calling 9-1-1,” Ferguson told the Courier.
Sharon, who declined to give her last name, said about 25 people had to be taken from the buildings to the emergency room for oxygen, because the ambulances ran out of oxygen.
“We have residents on the eighth floor that haven’t been outside since Tuesday (April 29) because they can’t get downstairs,” Sharon said. “We got a lady who is blind that can’t even come down.”
Sharon added: “All we got is cold water and flushing toilets.”
George Crosby, also 70, pulled the Courier to the side and said he couldn’t believe what was happening. “70 years old, I gotta walk up seven flights of steps…the power’s been out for five days, and they’re talking about it won’t be on tonight (Sunday, May 4), either. No showers, had to throw away all my food. It’s terrible. How, across the street, got lights? Over there, got lights…and we don’t?”
Crosby said getting the lights back on at Douglas Plaza Apartments should “have been a priority.”
After a sigh, Crosby said, “Being Black in America….”
Wilkinsburg Mayor Dontae Comans told the Courier that at 6:45 p.m. Monday, May 5, the power finally was restored. Prayers had been answered. Perhaps a sense of normalcy could begin again.
Earlier in the day, Mayor Comans went to the Douglas Plaza Apartments with 200 hot meals to serve to the residents, in conjunction with Metro Community Health Center, a steady partner with the city.
“The community loves Douglas Plaza,” Mayor Comans told the Courier on May 6. He said he bought residents pizza as soon as he heard about the prolonged outage, and that other people were stopping by to give the residents food or the ability to charge their cell phones.
Douglas Plaza Apartments management is responsible for assuring that generators will work in the event of another power outage, especially now that everyone in the Pittsburgh region has seen what Mother Nature can do. So far, though, the management has been quieter than a church mouse throughout the entire ordeal.
“They don’t care about us, don’t give a f___ about what we’re going through down here,” Frank told the Courier.
But people like Mayor Comans, Sloan, Dixon and Burke were among the ones who showed that they do care about the residents of Douglas Plaza. Dixon and Burke, who both own home care agencies in Wilkinsburg, not only brought the “Black person’s Sunday dinner” to the residents, they served it, too, and shared unforgettable moments with some of the residents, like Christopher Jenkins.
“God bless them for having them bring us a meal, I really appreciate it,” Jenkins, 58, told the Courier as Dixon handed him a plate.
“When I heard that there were a lot of residents without food, we got as much stuff as we could,” Burke, who was raised in Wilkinsburg, told the Courier. “We’re just trying to do as much as we can to give back.”
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