Potholes are the dreaded pain for every motorist’s car and wallet. Hitting these money suckers are dangerous and an expensive pain for both the motorist and the City.

While motorists feel the pain of a pothole in their wallet DeKalb feels this same pain in their streets. Hitting a pothole is a sign of a weakening economy; potholes have become bills that need to be paid yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

“Potholes as big as the ones I have seen are real dangerous,” said Jeremy Monteleone, freshman English major. “All you can really do is drive carefully.”

With constant money constraints pushed on states due to the economies struggles, paying a pothole bill is harder than it seems. So the question is who came first; the pothole or, the bad road? Although we wish a pothole was just a bump in the road its not; it’s a question of the durability of the road and how it came to become that way.

“A major problem for these potholes is due to the soil which contains a large amount of clay,” said Eugene Perry Geology and Environmental Geosciences Professor, “with the constant heavy loads on the roads it causes thin cracks which fill with water. The snow freezes the water on top of the whole road. When that water freezes it expands and breaks away what was once a smooth road.”

If we chose to blame the weather for these holes of misery we would only be covering the half of it. The American casserole of bad snow, snow plowing, and melting away of whatever is left with slat, we also contribute to the destruction of our streets. With wear-and-tear taken into account, how can we prevent such problems?

“I blame the bad winter,” said Donald Head freshman undecided major, “We had snow sitting around on curbs for so long it is no wonder there are potholes everywhere.”

If snow is on the ground snow plows and salt will been seen soon after. According to the DeKalb City Council minutes from the meeting held on November 24, 2008 the City of DeKalb has roughly 300 tons of salt stored to battle future snow events and, in a normal situation DeKalb would have 1,000 tons in the salt bin ready for use.

“The reasons for these salt inconsistencies were due to complications of deliveries,” said Rick Monas the Director of Public works.

The minutes explain that salt shipments from barges have been delayed, there are not enough semi-trucks available to haul salt as they are hauling farm grain and, State agencies will be served first and then local government deliveries will take place thereafter. As a result, the Department has to makes adjustments to the amount salt and snow plows that are used.

“This makes me think that if there were more resources of salt and snowplows in the winter there would be less of a chance for the roads to fall a part,” said Head.

Having plows constantly clean each street, followed by a salt truck to melt any thing left behind, all winter long, is a wish that is not going to come true. There is just not enough money in this Department to have the utopia of snow removing we would all love to have.

Altering snow removal tactics are necessary and there is nothing around it. America has hit its own pothole and now does not have the amount of spending money it needs. For now, we are doing what we can, with what we have.

“The roads can get the attention they need if there are enough people around to do so, more jobs would be great,” said Head. “But I think it is safe to assume seeing more jobs won’t happen soon.

In the winter there is snow which means we need enough resources of snow plows and salt to go around. And right when we think we are done with winter’s bad driving conditions we are left with the aftermath of a pothole mine field, which means more resources will be needed to fix these potholes. These attempts for an equal dispense of resources causes everyone to have to cut back on some things; including jobs.

We have our City Council here to control these operations but we have less than enough middlemen to carry them out. Again and again we hear stories of where we need to hold back and use what we can to survive. Well here you go DeKalb, we are now living it.