Low tire pressure lights are coming on throughout the Alle-Kiski Valley — and it’s not because of the cold.
Dozens of drivers are reporting flat tires caused by small metal fragments of unknown origin, mostly centered around the Harrison area.
Beverly Lydic of Springdale Township heard a hissing noise coming from her tire after taking Exit 15 from Route 28 into Harrison to drop off her dog Tuesday morning, she said.
She returned to Springdale for work, but by lunch, she noticed her tire was flat.
Lydic posted a photo of the small metal shard she found in her tire to Facebook, receiving hundreds of replies from residents who found similar metal fragments in their tires.
So far, Lydic said, she and others are unsure how the shards ended up on the roadway.
“I’d just like to know where it’s coming from,” she said. “It could have caused an accident.”
At Highland Tire in Tarentum, manager Harry Hoffman said he has encountered more than 30 customers with similar stories.
Mostly, he said, drivers reported their low pressure lights coming on while driving on Route 28.
“I had one lady, she had three in her tire,” Hoffman said.
During the winter season, he said, it’s not uncommon to see an increase in flat tires as plow trucks move materials on and off the roads.
But he has never seen anything like this, he said.
None of the tires at his shop have been ruined. Most just require a simple patch for a $30 fee, he said.
At the Harrison location of Highland Tire, assistant manager Bubba Signorella said the shop has seen 50 to 60 tires with the same shards over the past two days.
“It’s everybody in the Valley that seems to be getting them,” he said.
Harrison police Chief Brian Turack said the phone lines were flooded Wednesday with drivers in distress.
“It is like the WQED Christmas marathon in here with people calling due to getting flat tires,” Turack said.
He posted an alert to social media and requested PennDOT to broom or clean local roads to avoid further damage.
“It is unclear at this time where exactly the vehicles are picking up the metal fragments, but we believe that vehicles may be picking them up on Pa. Route 28, Pa. Route 908 and/or Freeport Road near Walmart,” the alert said.
The department said it doesn’t have any reason to believe the fragments were placed on the road with criminal intent, nor do they believe the shards are related to the spiked caltrops found on Brackenridge roads last August.
PennDOT spokesman Steve Cowan said a broom truck was active in Harrison Wednesday afternoon in the Burtner Road area. The truck then turned to routes 28 and 908 before heading up Freeport Road toward the Walmart shopping complex.
Cowan said crews hadn’t encountered any shards yet, and he was unsure how they ended up on the roadway.
Online speculation has mostly pointed to the potential of loose scrap metal from a transport truck.
But two of the closest scrapyards in the area say it didn’t come from them.
Chris Mitchell, controller at East Deer-based recycling firm PJ Greco Sons, said the company hadn’t hauled anything like the shards recently. Ed Tomson, owner of Tomson Scrap Metal in Brackenridge, said his company doesn’t handle materials like the shards.
At Fuzzy Tire in New Kensington, manager James Dickens said he has encountered 10 flats from the shards so far.
Like elsewhere, he said that drivers mostly reported picking them up on Route 28.
“I had three people in a row yesterday,” he said. “I was like ‘what the hell is this?’”
Jason Brandt, owner of Tire Stop in Arnold, said he has seen about four of the fragments so far.
A shard caused a tire blowout for one of the customers, according to Brandt.
“I see a lot of things in tires,” he said. “But never the same thing so many times in a row.”