June 21, 2006 – A huge pothole at a switchback in the East End Road is growing bigger by the day. "It's not a pothole, it's a swimming hole," East End resident Carol Beckowitz joked Wednesday.
Four-feet wide and 10-inches deep, the pothole poses a serious problem for drivers heading uphill around the switchback and toward Coral Bay from the East End.
If drivers stay in the left lane, they risk getting stuck in the pothole. Should they swing into the right lane to avoid the pothole, they may find themselves in a head-on collision with vehicles heading east.
"Everyday I find people with punctured tires," East End resident Terry McKoy said Wednesday.
Beckowitz, an emergency medical technician, said she fears that she'll be called to a fatal accident caused by the pothole. "And there's been a couple of very hairy moments for me," she said.
Someone alerted drivers with spray painted Xs and the word hole written before the pothole.
As if this wasn't bad enough, two other large potholes have materialized on the East End Road, again forcing motorists to veer out of their lane to avoid them. Fortunately, these two potholes are on flat ground so the drivers can see oncoming vehicles.
Additionally, concrete sits along the road's edge at nearly every uphill spot along the road heading in the direction of the East End. One spot is particularly bad, with boulder-size pieces of concrete along the edge and potholes growing on both sides of the road.
Beckowitz said that the Public Works Department scraped the concrete off the road several months ago, but it continues to pile up.
McKoy said the concrete comes from trucks heading toward construction projects on the East End. He said they're overfilled, so that when the trucks start uphill, the excess tumbles out the back.
"It's like a large lumbering elephant dropping gray turds," he said.
Beckowitz said that the construction trucks often offload heavy equipment before switchbacks because the trucks can't make the turns. The heavy equipment then chews up the road, which leads to potholes.
McKoy is fed up. He said he and his neighbors have let the Public Works Department know about both problems.
He said he and neighbors have provided license plates, times and dates of errant concrete and construction trucks to Public Works, but the problem continues.
Beckowitz said that other than litter laws, there appears to be nothing to stop concrete truck drivers from overfilling their trucks.
Beckowitz said that she's considering selling T-shirts that read "I Survived the Hole in the Road."
"To pay for the tires I've lost in the hole," she said, laughing.
Deputy Public Works Director Ira Wade could not be reached for comment.
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