Potholes keeping road crews busy

Hot patch for roads — the good stuff — won’t be made until next month.

Pop quiz: What would happen to blacktop roads if the weather stayed cold all winter?

Answer: Potholes — those moonscapelike craters that swallow tires — would be few and far between.

“With the freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw you get potholes,” said Dave Mazzochi, Warren’s operations department superintendent. “We’re better off to have the winter stay cold.”

Mazzochi said his crews are out patching potholes every day “unless we’re plowing snow.” In his 27 years, he said, this is the worst winter ever for potholes.

“Salesmen come in and say it’s like this everywhere, all over the place,” Mazzochi said.

Mazzochi explained how rain affects roads: Water gets into cracks. The temperature drops, the water freezes. The temperature rises, the cracks expand. The result: potholes.

Maybe a new Chinese proverb is in order: Go to sleep with freezing rain, wake up with blooming potholes.

“The rain this week made it worse for filling the holes,” Steve Andres, Salem’s director of public service, said Thursday. “Sometimes you end up filling a hole you patched last week.”

Throughout the Mahoning Valley, motorists not dodging potholes are swerving around road crews applying cold patch. The fix, though, is temporary.

Hot-patch plants won’t start making the more-permanent mix until next month. Hot patch is used in warm weather only.

Some well-traveled Mahoning County roads, such as Mahoning Avenue, have new potholes every day, said Marilyn Kenner, chief deputy engineer. Patching crews are out every day, including weekends, she said.

Kenner acknowledged that the engineer’s office is receiving a lot of calls from motorists reporting pothole locations. Aside from Mahoning Avenue, complaints are coming in for South Avenue and Western Reserve, County Line, Duck Creek, Ellsworth and Robinson roads, Kenner said.

The wet holes, she said, “keep growing” and she’s asking that everyone be patient.

A reader posted on the Vindy.com Pothole Patrol about a “huge” pothole on Salt Springs Road. He said Thursday the hole cost him two hubcaps and broke the latch on his convertible top.

Larry Wilson, Boardman road department superintendent, said most pothole complaint calls to his office concern roads in the township that are maintained by either the state or county, such as U.S. Route 224, South Avenue and Market Street. His crews are giving first priority to the biggest potholes on residential streets.

The holes, he agreed, are over the place. One road crew responds to complaints about holes while other workers find and patch holes as they go, he said.

Rain that seeps down into the cold-mix filler and freezes causes the filler to heave up, Wilson said. “It’s a vicious cycle.”

In Austintown, a typical pothole patching day means two crews on the roads. This year, “the worst ever,” according to Mike Dockry, township administrator/road superintendent, there have been days when four crews were out filling holes on residential streets.

The main roads that crisscross Austintown are maintained by the county. Dockry said most complaints concern county roads.