NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — “Pothole Patrols” are underway in Middle Tennessee.
With snow and ice mostly gone from area roads, crews with the Nashville Department of Transportation (NDOT) and Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) are out assessing road conditions.
Crews in Montgomery County are expecting a busy week as well after flooding was followed by roughly five inches of snow.
However, a top concern for road crews across Middle Tennessee: potholes.
TDOT told News 2 they are currently working to fill potholes in rural areas before shifting their focus to Nashville over the weekend. Along with NDOT, TDOT said whatever road repairs they do will only be temporary fixes until the summertime.
Montgomery County Highway Department reported roads look good, but they do expect issues to come about next week, which is when temperatures are expected to warm back up.
“Despite the fact that the roads are clear, rest assured, our crews are still going to be out looking for additional problems,” said Joshua Peltz with Montgomery County’s Highway Department. “We are already anticipating a big pothole problem, and we actually just had a meeting [Thursday] morning, talking about how we’re going to adjust our road paving and road patching plan into the spring, given the problems that this weather system has created, or is going to create.”
Peltz added their county and city roads are “very clear,” at least for now.
According to Peltz, one thing that adds to Montgomery County’s likely road challenges is that the area is “inundated with storm water” after the past few weeks of rough weather.
As for NDOT, they said they have four crews out assessing road damages until dark and will send those crews out for the next several days.
“The patch repair going on today through the rest of the week, because the asphalt plants can’t open in these temperatures. So we’re putting a temporary patch, a cold patch,” explained Phillip Jones, Assistant Director for NDOT. “We’re still diagnosing. We got a lot of inspectors out checking [the roads]. A lot of ours do come from calls.”
Currently, Jones said NDOT doesn’t have a backlog of reports coming in from drivers, but that could change.
“We’re in good shape. We’ve probably fixed, since January 1, we’ve fixed about 4,600 potholes. Last year, we fixed, I think, a little over 38,000,” explained Jones. “We’ll know a lot more come Monday, but we will continue to run four crews and more, if needed, to keep up with the demand.”
To report road issues or potholes in Nashville, you can call 311 or follow this link.
