Now that they’re not plowing snow, at least for a few days, Perry Public Works employees are busy filling potholes.

Deputy Public Works Director Josh Wuebker says they have their hands full.

“You know, with this warm up and all the moisture we’ve had, there’s a lot of potholes and we know that.  We can’t fix them all overnight, they’re all over the state, it’s not just in Perry.  The plan is the guys are going to go out and get the real bad ones in the high traffic areas and then they’re just going to drive all the roads in town and do what they can with a temporary fix.  None of the asphalt plants are working right now, of course. So we use a cold patch that will actually heat up in one of our machines that has a burner.  It’s kind of a permanent/temporary fix.”

Public Works Director Jack Butler adds that this patching is also only effective for large holes.

“(Those) little shallow ones, this cold mix will not stay in. So you know, we’re looking for an inch, two inches deep.  We’ve got a couple around town that we’ve noticed that have opened up to maybe three to four inches deep.  All those little slivered ones that we would normally do in the summer, we’ll more than likely be waiting on them just because we could be up there everyday putting this stuff in and if it’s not deep enough to help hold that in there, a car drives over it and it pops right back out.”

Butler says crews will likely be working on potholes all week, as long as the weather cooperates.