MORGANTOWN — It’s been wetter than normal.
It’s been colder than normal.
And if that’s not depressing enough on its own, those are the exact conditions necessary for a bumper crop of car-busting, mood-altering potholes.
“I have not seen potholes deeper than what we have there,” Morgantown City Councilor Bill Kawecki recently said of Spruce Street.
Not to be outdone, Councilor Louise Michael noted she recently hit a doozy in Westover that she initially believed had broken her axle (turns out the damage was less severe, if not less expensive).
These are just two examples, but everyone has a pothole or two or many dozen lurking on their daily commute that they’ll swear are the worst they’ve ever seen.
And according to the West Virginia Division of Highways, they just might be.
Water is the number one enemy when it comes to road conditions as the expansion of freezing water beneath a road’s surface is what creates the cavity that becomes a pothole.
“Statistically speaking, this has been one of the wettest Januarys and Februarys in recent years, and the National Weather Service is reporting some of the coldest weather in recent years in West Virginia, resulting in an acceleration of the pothole forming process,” DOH Chief Engineer of Operations Jacob Bumgarner explained. “There is not a way to completely prevent potholes from forming, but less weather in places and less traffic will make potholes form less frequently.”
Which leaves the DOH playing whack-a-hole this time each year.
It’s an expensive game to play, and impossible to win.
According to the DOH Performance Management Division, the 2024 pothole patching season – which was warmer and drier than the one we’re currently experiencing – cost just over $16.8 million in labor, equipment and material statewide.
From January to May 2024, DOH crews racked up 276,744 employee hours filling 277,309 potholes across West Virginia, including 57,729 holes in District 4, which includes Monongalia County.
“WVDOH crews continue to work on potholes throughout the state at the same rate as the potholes in Monongalia County,” Bumgarner said.
