Pothole Problems Plague Metro Roadways

Public Works crews have been working to keep up with reports of potholes around the city, while drivers have been dodging the holes in the road to avoid car damage. For some however, the potholes seem to pop out of nowhere.

"I didn't even know it was there," explained Yessica Verduzco, who just got her pickup out of the mechanic shop. "All of a sudden I hit a pothole real hard."

Verduzco thinks the pothole was about four or five inches deep. She hit it so hard along SW 44^th St. that the impact woke up her son, who was sleeping in the backseat. Her truck suffered damage to the front, right wheel. Her bill from the auto body shop was $200.

"We definitely like to repair them as they pop up because it just creates further problems for the roadways," explained Shannon Cox with Oklahoma City Public Works.

But with some 11,000 miles of roadway in OKC alone, crews cannot possibly see every pothole. So they rely on drivers to report them as they see the potholes. Public Works crews will get the pothole patched as quickly as they can.

"As soon as they call it gets logged in and then we have you know anywhere form like a 48 hour turn-around to repair the potholes," said Cox.

Mechanics told News 9 that the damage a pothole can cause to a vehicle depends on how deep it is and how fast the driver is going. However, as a rule of thumb, if the pothole is deep enough to put the rim level with the roadway, it will probably do some damage.