You won’t believe what one hour of rain did to a Pittsburgh turf field
School districts install turf fields to try and protect surfaces from the natural elements. Evidently that logic sometimes backfires.
The photo you see above depicts the current state of Russ Grimm Field at Alverton (Pa.) Southmoreland High. The facility has long had a turf field, but now much of it has no surface at all after a torrential downpour of more than two inches of rain in a single hour completely wrecked the turf surface.
The rain damage was first tweeted by Pittsburgh CBS affiliate KDKA and covered by the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, which reported that the school has no idea how long the field will be out of commission ... but is expecting it to be off limits for some time.
"There is water damage under the carpet," Alverton superintendent John Molnar told the Tribune. "We don't want anybody twisting an ankle. The main thing is keeping all players safe. We're keeping them off the field, even the part that was not lifted."
Of course, the timing of the water damage is particularly unfortunate, with Southmoreland scheduled to open the 2013 football season on Friday. That game against Jeanette (Pa.) High was scheduled to be played at the now-inoperable Southmoreland turf, but will instead be played at California University of Pennsylvania.
Something tells Prep Rally there will be more games this season played there as well.
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