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This winter's wet weather and temperature swings have local street departments scrambling as workers try to fill holes in streets as fast as they open up.
Kim Leake, Warsaw's superintendent of public works, said Monday that he keeps two crews on the streets filling potholes every day the weather allows.
They try to fill holes as soon as they're aware of them, no matter how small, Leake said. "Once they start in a heavily traveled area, a small one can become large within a few hours."
Every time a car wheel hits a pothole, a little more pavement breaks off.
The size of potholes grows especially quickly on truck routes, he said. "Once you get a hole started with a semi, one semi will hit it five times."
Potholes start when the ground freezes and thaws, creating cracks. Water gets into the cracks, freezes and expands, making the cracks bigger.
If the hole is not filled immediately, said Kim Endicott, Winona Lake's street department superintendent, the water will sit in the bottom of the pothole and continue to freeze and thaw, making the hole bigger and deeper.
Even potholes that are patched quickly don't always stay fixed, Endicott said, because of the water that leaks in and freezes.
The problem is worse this year because of the major temperature fluctuations, Leake said.
Leake travels city streets daily, checking on road conditions. Street department crews, including brush, sewer and trash trucks, also report any holes they find, and the department takes calls from residents.
He said if someone calls with a report of a pothole, the department usually can fix it within "a day or two."
This year Warsaw's street department will spend between $18,000 and $20,000 on materials alone, he said. "And that's a lot of material by the shovelful."
An unusually snowy winter also means that street departments will use more salt this year than usual - Leake said he expects salt use to double this year, to approximately 2,000 tons, at a cost of $60,000.
