Pothole season begins on Eastern Iowa roadways

Freezing and thawing...freezing and thawing. That's one way to describe the last few weeks of winter. But it's also the recipe for a potential bumper crop of potholes on Eastern Iowa roadways.

Still, just how rough the roads will get after the next thaw cycle is anyone's guess.

Street crews in Cedar Rapids can use special equipment to heat up the patching mix used to repair potholes. So temperature's not a factor in when to start fixing the streets. But with all the hard glaze or ice still packed on many streets, you can't see all the potential problems yet. And what you can't see, you can't fix.

Cedar Rapids Streets Maintenance Manager Craig Hanson said the city is sitting on a 50-ton stockpile of the asphalt patch material used to fix potholes. But the city doesn't have any crews working on the problem now. That's because trying to fix anything right now is a losing battle.

“The key is you can't have a pothole full of snow when you're putting the patch in. You could do that, but the patch will come out pretty soon after,” Hanson said.

Hanson said city crews are still scraping off the snow that blew around on Monday. But with a little sunshine, he could see sending trucks out with patching mix later in the week.

Hanson said some drivers bounching up and down on the streets now may blame potholes. But in some cases, the problem is ice ruts or what he called “ice doughnuts.” That's the mounded up ice with a hole melted in the middle. Running over one can feel just like hitting a pothole.

Frost heaves also push up sections of pavement. But after the final thaw, some sections could settle down withouit needing major street repairs. Hanson said if you want a good snapshot of the entire pothole problem, don't guess now--come back in a couple of months.

“Until we start looking at the last week of March or early April...when the frost is fully out of the ground again...we won't be able to know that,” Hanson said.