SEATTLE, Wash. (KOMO) – Seattle broke a weather record Wednesday when the city reached 95°. It wasn’t just uncomfortable, it also caused some damage.
On a record scorching day, the pavement on 4th Avenue South couldn’t help but buckle under the pressure of the heat.
Benjamin Hansen with the Seattle Department of Transportation said, “In the 15 or so years I’ve been at the city, I’ve probably seen four or five of these, so it’s very uncommon.”
The road peaked at least a foot off the ground. Then a woman crashed her car when she drove over the hump in the road.
Engineers said Seattle has a lot of older pavement and the roads don’t have a lot of room to expand when it gets hot.
“You know, if you press on a pencil or something from the edges it doesn’t shrink,” Hansen explained. “All of a sudden, it will buckle one way or another. And that’s what’s happening with the pavement, you’re getting this buckle that has to do with the heat.”
Crews spent the rest of the day trying to level and patch the buckled road. But with summer just getting started, engineers say it’s possible it could happen again. “They’re not predictable,” Hansen said, “so we just try to respond as quickly as we can.”
The woman who crashed her car had minor injuries.
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