On Valley Pike, people this week were swerving around or driving slowly past a large pothole. It is now no more, but not before it claimed its casualties.
“I was like ‘bam,’ right into it. I thought, ‘we’re going to lose our tire,’” Julie Johnson of Dayton said on Thursday.
She said she could not avoid the pothole, which she described as “massive.”
“I went to slow down there this morning, and then my daughter and I almost got smashed in the back because I was trying to avoid it,” she said.
Johnson said she reached out to the city of Dayton numerous times this week.
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Dayton’s deputy director of public works said potholes have not been so bad so far this winter, which has been a mild one.
“Not a lot of the freezing and thawing that we’ve seen last year. We think this year will be a lot better than last year,” Tom Ritchie Jr. said.
Last January, the city patched almost 1,600 potholes.
With lots of rain in the forecast this weekend, that could mean more work for road crews.
“We will start sweeping the neighborhoods in the next week or so, just patching anything that we see,” Ritchie said.
The city's "Dayton Delivers" customer service program features a mobile app, call center at 937-333-4800 where people can report potholes or other issues.
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And, the public works department welcomes calls from people like Johnson.
“I feel it’s important to call on all these big potholes, that are that big, because of the damage to the vehicles,” he said.
The city has two crews handling potholes.
But when more pop up, the city usually has five crews out.
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