Potholes worse than usual because of early snow
For people like Donald King, who drives a school bus for a living, it's been a bumpy winter of potholes.
“There seems to be more of them. They seem to be deeper than normal,” King said.
Maintenance crews in Raleigh, Durham and with the state's Department of Transportation said potholes are unusually bad for this early in the season.
“It's from the snow and ice,” DOT engineer Jason Dunigan said. “We normally don't have snow and ice this early.”
A little lesson about how potholes form: When water seeps into asphalt and freezes, it expands. That damages the pavement.
When the water goes away, the crack remains.
“Each time that happens, the crack gets bigger and bigger and bigger,” Dunigan said.
The early December snowstorm led to a big pothole problem, but crews have been busy filling them, including one along New Hope Road in Raleigh.
Crews don't know about potholes until someone reports them. That's up to drivers.
Drivers have to report a pothole to the right people. That all depends on who's in charge of maintaining that road.
Ashe Avenue, for example, is the city of Raleigh’s responsibility to maintain, but Western Boulevard is the state's responsibility.
“We are responding within 48 hours of getting a report of the pothole,” Dunigan said, “or trying to.”
The City of Raleigh said it's trying to respond within 24 hours.
King said he's noticing the roads are getting a little smoother.
“I've seen several of them patched up and several that were really bad patched up,” he said. “Hopefully they'll get to the others soon.”
There's a lot more winter, and potholes, yet to come.
