City Council this week agreed informally to allow staff to investigate the feasibility of building a training facility for firefighters and police a project that could cost between $500,000 and $750,000, according to Interim City Manager Joe Merrill. In such a facility, firefighters could practice placement of ladders and hose, working on roofs, rescues […]
Eight tenants of an apartment house on the 100 block of Sixth Avenue lost their homes in a fire discovered Wednesday around dawn, when one tenant awoke to the screeching of a detector, then roused the others with help from someone passing by on the street. The 2.5-story, eight-unit apartment house was heavily damaged throughout […]
A coalition comprising faith-based groups, the city of Altoona, its fire department, Blair County, its Department of Emergency Management and local human service agencies has launched an overnight winter warming center for unsheltered people. Located in a city church, the center started operating Jan. 8 and will be open from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. […]
A storm that began around dawn Tuesday dropped a little more than four inches of snow through the morning, then added a little less than two inches of rain by early evening, according to the National Weather Service in State College. River flooding that was foreseen in emergency alerts the day before had not materialized […]
In the coming months, the Blair County Hazardous Mitigation Committee will be surveying county residents in hopes of identifying problems that ought to be solved to make the community safer. The survey is part of an update of the county’s hazard mitigation plan, required every five years, committee Chairman and Blair Planning Director Dave McFarland […]