Omaha Street Maintenance Engineer Austin Rowser says this has been the worst winter of the seven he has been with the city. Several rounds of snow this season has worn out city workers who are responsible for clearing snow, spreading salt and fixing potholes.
"We are patching potholes, but the time we've been able to peel off and do that has been somewhat limited because of the excessive amount of time we've been plowing snow," Rowser says.
Pothole repairs will again take a backseat as the metro area prepares for yet another snow storm Wednesday night into Thursday morning. It's possible 2-5 inches could fall across the metro area. Rowser says they were able to get some brine down on the streets Wednesday afternoon ahead of the storm. They have 100 snow plows ready to go Thursday.
He says the fresh snow will only create more pothole problems. "Here we go with a fresh round of moisture on it. The freeze-thaw cycle and plows down kind of mechanically grind into the surface of the streets," Rowser says. "It's kind of the perfect storm of weather and potholes together so we're just trying to stay after it the best we can."