Cracking up

A few years ago, our old friend “Florida Man,” fed up with a pesky pothole near his business, did what any rational, normal, totally sane person would do: he planted a banana tree in it.

“I pulled up, and I’m like, is that really a tree in the middle of the road?” John Hulker, who lives in Fort Myers, told the news station WINK-TV at the time.

Now, Florida news stations never followed up to find out how banana-gate all resolved, but we get the point – potholes are actually pretty dangerous and can mess up your car. Not to mention causing drivers to swerve at the last minute and hit god knows what.

And, we bet you know where this is headed – there are a lot of potholes around Durango’s roads right now. I mean, a lot.

“With all the moisture we’ve received this winter, we’re seeing more potholes than normal,” Joey Medina, the City of Durango’s interim streets manager, said.

Potholes are caused by the expansion and contraction of water that enters the pavement. When water freezes, it expands, causing the pavement to bend and crack. When it melts, the pavement gets gaps in the surface. Repeat this process again and again and you’re left with that crater-sized pothole on 25th Street.

To fix a pothole, you need days with favorable weather (i.e. no moisture). The city’s crews are out trying to fix the pesky problems every chance they get, Medina said, but with all the continuous snowstorms this winter, it’s made it hard to get them fixed.

“We’re trying to get ahead on it with every day we have good weather,” he said. “Last week, we had two different crews during the day shift trying to get everything fixed.”

The City of Durango tries to prioritize which problem areas get fixed first, such as heavily trafficked roads like East 3rd Avenue, College Drive and Goeglein Gulch. And it also tries to tackle potholes that are causing drivers the most issues.

And it’s true – potholes can mess up your car, bending/cracking tires, damaging a tire’s sidewalls or knocking your vehicle out of alignment, to name a few.

In the meantime – and we know this is likely to just fall on deaf ears – but here’s a few tips to avoid pothole damage: slow down (shocker!), focus on the road and stay alert (tall order!) and check your surroundings before swerving (the nerve to ask!)

If all else fails, plant a banana tree.