Pothole Patrol

COEUR d’ALENE — Since no snow has fallen for two weeks in Coeur d’Alene, snowplows have fallen silent.

And that gives the city’s Streets and Engineering Department time to take on another primary task: Filling potholes.

“If we’re not plowing, we’re working on potholes,” said Todd Feusier, director of Streets and Engineering Department.

He chatted Friday as crews made their way south on Ramsey Road next to the Ramsey Park. With sunshine, Friday was a good day for filling holes, big and small.

And there were a lot of them.

Crews blew out the dirt and water and dried the hole with heat. Then, they used what is called a Durapatch machine to spray oil in it, then layers of rocks, then more oil before smoothing it out and compacting it.

"It's basically like a chip seal," Feusier said.

It takes about a day to set.

“It is a dirty process. It makes a mess, but it's a somewhat temporary permanent solution. This is a process we cannot do in the rain,” he said. “We need to have dry days to do this."

It is one of those never-ending tasks, because potholes seem to surface on every arterial and collector street in the city. Potholes decorated stretches of Ramsey Road, causing some drivers to take evasive action and swerve left or right.

Feusier said residents report potholes via phone calls or online. Supervisors also drive main roads on a daily basis as a pothole patrol of sorts.

“We will dispatch the crews accordingly," Feusier said. “We try and stay in front of it."

It’s not easy.

This time of year, with the area’s usual combination of freezing conditions, rain, warm up, freeze again, it leads to potholes. Basically, the water enters the ground, freezes, expands, thaws, repeat a few times, and voila, you have holes and cracks that only grow bigger with time.

“It’s pretty much a battle the whole winter,” Feusier said.

The city has two day crews.

"We run this application when weather permits," Feusier said Friday. "We have another cold mix application on a deeper hole to buy us some time to get there. We also do run a night shift report."

It’s part of their winter budget.

“Our council is really good about affording us what we need to do to keep the roads safe,” Feusier said.

Their efforts should keep potholes down through the winter and spring, which keeps drivers from blowing a fuse when they slam into a pothole and their car is suddenly pulling to the left.

A permanent fix comes in the summer

A drawback, repairing potholes means reducing traffic to one lane.

Feusier asks the public to give crews space to do their job and be patient.

“This is what's needed to repair the potholes,” he said.