By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
Heavy rains have created thousands of potholes,
including this one on King Street.

City and state road crews have been doing patchwork since the Nov. 5 General Election.

City workers had patched 1,200 potholes through yesterday.

"This two-week period is the worst I've ever experienced," said Yukio Uyehara, chief of the city Road Maintenance Division.

"The number of potholes is four or five times more than usual."

Department of Transportation spokeswoman Marilyn Kali says four to six state road crews have been patching potholes or doing something weather-related continuously since last Friday.

Through Monday, they used two tons of "cold mix" to patch potholes.

"We usually resurface every eight to 10 years," Kali said. "Roads are usually good through the first half of life after resurfacing, but when water gets into small cracks, it begins to wear away."

That creates potholes.

Drivers shudder to think of the rattling, bolt-jolting impact of a car running into a pothole.

Uyehara and Kali say the fastest way to get potholes patched is to call a hot line: 527-6006 for city roads; 536-7852 for state highways.

If the pothole called into the city number is on a state road, the information is passed to the state.

The same is true for the state number. "Our goal is to try and respond to calls on our hot line within 48 hours," Uyehara said. "We're very proud of the fact that we're hitting about 90 percent. That's a credit to our boys."

The city has only one full-time, three-man crew to patch potholes.