City Launches Weeklong Effort to Fix Potholes

They call it “Operation Pothole.”

The Department of Public Works has declared war on the thousands of potholes ravaging the streets of Los Angeles, devoting extra crews to its street maintenance division all week long to mend an estimated 950 potholes a day.

To kick off the blitzkrieg, Councilman Joel Wachs rolled up his sleeves and joined street maintenance workers in Tujunga in a pothole repair demonstration Monday. Raking the 300-degree mixture of steaming asphalt, sand and rock that was poured into the dug-up hole, Wachs said, “I should put that on my resume!”

The public works department has launched the pothole repair project to prevent costly and traffic-clogging reconstruction. During “Operation Pothole,” street maintenance workers will be sent out in 12 teams of two per day this week to work on square-block areas in each of the 15 council districts in Los Angeles. They will also respond within 24 hours to calls from the public to patch up potholes in isolated areas.

Every year, according to a public works release, $3 million is spent to fix 200,000 potholes in Los Angeles caused by overweight vehicles, water and aging.

The asphalt dug out of all potholes in Los Angeles is recycled, public works spokesman Chuck Ellis said, and when the material is heated before being poured into the hole, microwave ovens, instead of conventional pollution-causing ones, are used.

Residents are invited to report potholes in their neighborhoods during this week to be fixed within 24 hours--barring storms or other emergencies--at (818) 760-2259.