Potholes are a sign of spring

scottw@standard-democrat.com

SIKESTON -- Spring officially begins Friday with one of the first signs already prevalent: potholes.

"These last two winter storm events really took a toll on the streets," said Jay Lancaster, public works director for the city of Sikeston. "There's potholes popping up everywhere. We are getting our crews out there to fix them as quickly as we can as soon as we find out about them. We've started on that and are making good progress."

"We need some touching up for sure," Richard Wallace, Mississippi County road and bridge superintendent, said of his roads. "All that snow we got, all the freezing and thawing, put the blues on us. We have some catching up to do."

David Wyman, area engineer of the Missouri Department of Transportation's Southeast District, said roads were hit both by snowplows and by the thawing-freezing water expanding cracks.

"Every year about this time, coming out of winter into spring, our roads take a lot of abuse," Wyman said. "What we try to do as the cold weather gets behind us is focus on getting those potholes filled in. There's some of them on every road. We have a lot of them we need to be working on, but not very good weather to do it. As soon as it does dry out, that's our plan."

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