A few blocks away, a large tree along East Seventh Avenue, which had branches touching power lines, was also giving him problems.

“We would have a storm with a lot of wind and the branches would touch the wires and actual sparks would come down on the sidewalk,” Gatto said.

Recent heavy storms that rolled through the Alle-Kiski Valley did more to elevate the issue, Gatto said.

During one of the storms, one of the tree branches came down and knocked out power to the entire block.

The power outage at the end of July forced Gatto to shut down all of his stores for an entire Saturday — his busiest day of the week. He wasn't pleased.

During a storm a week later, another branch on the same tree knocked the power out again, Gatto said. Luckily, it was restored by the time he opened up that Saturday.


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