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Tuesday, June 04, 2002

By Patricia Lowry, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

The splintered branches hanging over Allegheny Cemetery's stone wall along Stanton Avenue only hint at the devastation that lies within.

Through the iron fence along Butler Street, passers-by can see sycamores and other large trees lying prone, their exposed root balls taking along sizable chunks of turf when they were upended. Branches big and small are tossed about everywhere.

Still, the damage from Friday evening's storm isn't as bad as previously thought.

The cemetery's management originally estimated that 200 trees had been uprooted or severed at their bases. A survey later revealed 80 uprooted or severed trees, and many others that have had branches sheared off and will have to be pruned or cut down.

"We want to catalog the damage," said cemetery President Tom Roberts yesterday. "We want to know what kinds of trees are down, the size and location. We'd like to do a reforestation of the same size and types of trees."

The storm didn't cut a path through the 300-acre burial ground, about two-thirds of which has been developed.

"It's more of a thinning of the canopy throughout the cemetery," Roberts said.

And while "the landscape itself has been hit pretty badly, we haven't found that there is much damage to the monuments or headstones," because branches and leaves of the fallen trees protected them, keeping the trunks a safe distance away. "There are dislodged monuments, but they can be placed back. There was no breach in the integrity of the graves."

Workers are clearing the roads and Roberts expects parts of the cemetery around the Penn Avenue and Butler Street entrances to reopen later this week.

Established in 1844 as a 100-acre rural cemetery, Allegheny was designed in the romantic, picturesque style by architect John Chislett, who also designed the Butler Street gateway. It is the sixth oldest incorporated cemetery in the United States, with some trees likely predating it.

In the developed portions of the cemetery, the oldest, biggest and most vulnerable trees are in the oldest sections. Newer sections were developed following the "lawn plan," with flush grave markers and fewer trees.

The smaller St. Mary's Cemetery, adjacent to Allegheny, also was hit hard by the storm, although a spokesman couldn't estimate the number of affected trees.

"There was significant damage, with a lot of broken trees and some being uprooted. It's very severe," said the spokesman for St. Mary's and Calvary cemeteries, who declined to give his name. He didn't know the age of St. Mary's Cemetery, but it's almost as old as Allegheny. It appears on an 1852 map in Walter Kidney's 1990 book, "Allegheny Cemetery: A Romantic Landscape in Pittsburgh."

At Calvary Cemetery, in Greenfield, there are also uprooted trees and broken branches.

"The upper hill was harder hit," he said. "Some of the trees came down and are covering the monuments."

Damage assessment and tree removal at the two cemeteries are just beginning and are expected to be completed next week. Both are closed to the public, except for funerals. Management will reassess the situation at Calvary on Thursday morning and at St. Mary's on Saturday morning.