Medford, Ore. — Many of Southern Oregon’s roads are now full of potholes, due to our recent blast of winter weather. In Medford, the city has already started patching them up, but Public Works Director Cory Crebbin said it’ll be a long process.
“This storm has been pretty unusual, and the impacts on our pavements have been pretty unusual too,” Crebbin said. “We had really cold temperatures, which makes the pavement a little bit stiffer, and you start to get some cracks forming due to that stiffness.”
Those cracks, combined with snow and rain weakens the asphalt and causes it to break, leaving drivers like Steven Wescott with a bumpy road. Wescott is a former snowplower for ODOT, he said it’s a problem he’s all too familiar with.
“When we have a lot of rain, it’s going to happen, and there’s a lot of traffic in Medford on a lot of little roads, and it gets ripped up pretty good,” Wescott said.
Crebbin says crews are already on it, patching potholes on streets with the most traffic.
“It’s obviously a little bit more volume of pothole patching than we normally have, so we’ll start with the high volume streets and work down to the local streets,” Crebbin said.
If you would like to report a pothole on your street, you can report them to the City by calling (541) 774-2600.
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