PHILADELPHIA -
FOX 29 is getting results for a Frankford man tired of looking at a gaping hole left behind by a Philadelphia Gas Works crew more than two weeks ago.
Richard Jaffe called us to report the mess when a PGW crew left an unfinished service restoration project on the 1800 block of Ruan St. back on January 14.
A 2-ft. by 3-ft. hole, about 2 feet deep, greeted him as he walked out his front door.
Sixty pounds of asphalt patch was in the hole-- and still in the bag!
"No kind of barriers, no nothing," said Jaffe to FOX 29's Bruce Gordon Thursday morning. "No caution tape- nothing! I could have walked right into it. Somebody could have drove into it!"
Jaffe says when he called PGW, a crew came out to place three wooden planks, two sawhorses and a traffic cone over the top of the hole.
"Somebody should be held accountable for this. That's what I think," said Jaffe. "The workers who dug it up and just walked away from the hole, leaving it, should be held accountable."
When last night's monsoon rains came through the city, the hole- covered only by those planks- became a magnet for rainwater.
"It's rushing down the hill," said Jaffe, "all the rain coming right down the hill, into the hole. It ends up leaking into my house this morning. I got a little bit of water."
Gordon quickly phoned PGW and, within 90 minutes, a new work crew was on the scene.
They poured crushed stone into the hole, added asphalt patch and compressed the mixture, to create a passably smooth surface.
PGW says this was an incomplete work site, but clearly it was not left in a clean and safe state.
The city may well be out to do more work on the block, but- hopefully- crews will leave the street in decent shape.
As for Jaffe?
"I wanted something done," he told Gordon. "Today, we got it. Thank you FOX 29!"
Our pleasure.
BEFORE: The hole outside of Richard Jaffe's Frankford home when FOX 29 arrived.
AFTER: After calls made by FOX 29's Bruce Gordon, crews came out to the home and patched the hole.
