Potholes From Hell
USA Today reports on the massive amounts of road damage experienced in Maine as a direct result of the brutally harsh winter they have endured. They have potholes so severe that cars are actually being killed by them. Literally.
PORTLAND, Maine — With a bone-jarring jolt, Juanita and Leon Smith's Volkswagen Beetle bottomed out rounding a corner on a potholed two-lane road that seemed more appropriate for a horse-drawn wagon than their car.Oil poured out of the punctured oil pan, the engine froze up and the car sputtered to a halt in Lincolnville, a small town near the coast. Their insurance company wrote the car off as a total loss.
Potholes are an annual rite of spring in New England, but this monster winter of record snowfall amounts — nearly 200 inches in places — has turned roads into monster problems.
The road had cracks and holes and heaves all over it," said Juanita Smith, recounting the mid-March incident. "It looked like an earthquake had opened up the road."
New Englanders know all too well what spring can bring as roads swell up and break apart when water seeps into pavement cracks and freezes and thaws while the road is being pounded under the heavy weight of vehicles.
Maine's state Department of Transportation faces record pothole repair bills. Through March, it had spent $3.1 million, just shy of the record $3.2 million spent in the winter of 2005-2006.
Maine is spending even more money trying to get their roads into a reasonably serviceable condition. Where I live in the Midwest, our road is a disaster. The town has tried to patch, but the patches are now coming apart, so you get the joy of hitting a pothole and getting pelted with fragments of the failed repairs. The weather report, ever cheerful this winter (and it is very much still winter), is calling for ice this week. Just for the record, here's today's snowfall anomaly in the Northern hemisphere. Blue is more snow than normal. Here's the Southern ice cap and the Northern one.
Environment | Gaius Sunday, 6 April , 2008
By clifto, Sunday, 6 April , 2008 @ 7:53 pm
Chicago area and southwestern burbs are pretty bad as well. I’ve never seen this many deep potholes (even the ones a few inches in diameter are 8″ deep), or for that matter as many potholes, period. Some of the patching is doing well, but the potholes appear faster than the patch crews can keep up with them.
By Maggie, Sunday, 6 April , 2008 @ 8:38 pm
HEH!!!!
Mahoning County, NE Ohio …
Dark-friggin’-side of da moon, Alice!
By Flyfish, Tuesday, 8 April , 2008 @ 5:12 pm
It’s true, after 24 years of living in Maine I’d have to say this is the worst spring for potholes I have seen so far.