Patching potholes the old-fashioned way

By Dan Linehan
The Free Press

MANKATO May 07, 2008 01:04 am

— Gary Otto is used to being behind the wheel of a truck-mounted, pothole-filling machine that does all the work.
“You’re running it with one hand,” the city of Mankato streets worker said.
But on Tuesday, Otto was holding a rake, tamping down asphalt as it was shoveled into holes from a trailer, by hand. He was one of a five-person crew filling holes on North Fifth Street created by a particularly harsh winter.
That same weather has delayed the opening of an Algona, Iowa, plant that creates the type of water-based oil the pothole machine runs on.
So city workers are going old school: shoveling the gritty asphalt by hand, smoothing it, then flattening it. That’s five people: a driver for the truck, another for a trailing vehicle to ward off traffic, two shovelers and a smoother.
Streets foreman Jim Braunshausen said the city hasn’t located a supplier close enough to be practical. One possibility is Eau Claire, but the truck only holds 300 gallons of asphalt and would have to be constantly refueled.

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