Dear Otus,
We were headed to the Black Friday sale at Bass Pro Shops last week when we hit our first pothole of the winter. There was this big bump - sort of a ker-thump - then a whoomp-like noise and the sound of crunching metal.
With more freezing temps looming, I hope this isn’t a harbinger of things to come.
- Ben Suffren, Sherwood
Dear Ben,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and to note that Little Rock’s Emergency Pothole Response Team was dispatched and had you and your 1993 Ford F-150 extracted within two hours.
I’m gratified to learn no one was injured, although the truck has been declared a loss, except for the gun rack and the bed liner.
“That bed liner’s darn near indestructible,” you also wrote. “Maybe they ought to fill up the potholes with recycled bed liners.”
You seem to have maintained your sense of humor, but for thousands of Little Rock commuters, the potholes of winter are becoming an annual nuisance.
Steve Schlagloch, Little Rock’s assistant deputy director for pothole restoration and rehabilitation, has urged patience throughout the looming pothole crisis and warns citizens that things will get worse before they get better.
Potholes, known in the transportation industry as “subjacent corollary anomalies,” occur when water enters air pockets that are formed in newly mixed asphalt during the kneading, rising and knock-down process.
In winter, rainwater enters the air pockets, freezes and expands. The resulting hole can be as small as an inch deep and a foot across or as large as a Chevy Tahoe.
“Last year we had one unusually large hole that snapped the axle of a UPS truck like a twig,” Schlagloch said. “We had to use the Jaws of Life to extract the driver.”
There is an unconfirmed report that a motorcyclist on Cantrell Road disappeared during the early hours recently after striking a pothole that drivers had grimly labeled “the widow maker.”
“That’s probably an urban myth,” chuckled Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola. “They found an old helmet and a broken kickstand, but the hole itself was empty.”
Nonetheless, parents are warned to keep their children away from potholes, as they have been known to expand rapidly when warmed by the afternoon sun.
“We have 15 city crews on call to fill the holes as fast as they turn up,” Schlagloch said. “These crews are highly trained, well-oiled machines, and I urge citizens to give them every courtesy as they go about their business.”
When temps are below freezing, the 15-man hole filler teams cruise the streets in specially equipped purple trucks left from the days of County Judge Arch Campbell. They handle the potholes in a sort of asphaltian triage.
“We try to get to those axle-busters within a day or two,” Schlagloch said. “The ones that only take out a tire rim or pop a hubcap may take up to a week. The pesky basketball-size holes that knock the cellphone out of your hand sometimes require up to 10 days to be filled. The itsy-bitsy ones will have to wait for spring.”
Schlagloch noted most passing drivers don’t realize that each man in a crew has a critical assignment that has been determined from years of asphalt repair studies. While it may appear that there are only a couple of guys filling in the hole and a bunch of others standing around, reality is another matter.
“You’ve got your master plan representative,” Schlagloch said. “He’s the overall supervisor. He’s assisted by the supervisor supervisor. Then each project must have a civil engineer and draftsman to oversee the safety inspector and deputy safety inspector.
“There are two cone monitors to lay out and retrieve the orange safety cones; and an asphalt truck driver and his assistant, who doubles as a mechanic.
“You have an upwind and downwind flagman (some of these are women), who work with the auxiliary relief flagman and the traffic flow coordinator, who monitors the two-way radios.
“Finally we have the guy who actually shovels the new asphalt into the pothole.”
Schlagloch noted, “On a good day these guys can actually fill five, maybe six potholes.”
Schlagloch urges that during trying times, citizens should not take matters into their own hands. “If there’s a pothole out in front of your house, do not attempt to fill it yourself,” he said. “Leave it to the professionals.”
Until next time, Kalaka reminds you to report potholes to the city’s emergency pothole reporting hotline (dial 311) or online at littlerock.org. Holes containing vehicles, small children and pets, or the aged and infirm will be given top priority.
Disclaimer
Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat’s award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. Email: [email protected]
HomeStyle, Pages 32 on 12/07/2013