Uhrichsville Mayor Rick Dorland says they'll start filling some of the worst potholes, like the ones along this stretch of South Water Street, as soon as the weather breaks. (Photo by Stacey Carmany, Tusco TV)

Uhrichsville, Ohio - The city’s mayor is asking residents to be patient as they work to deal with all the potholes that formed over the winter. 

Rick Dorland says they’re already starting to get complaints about bumpy roads and alleyways. He says this problem is due to all the temperature fluctuations in the last couple of months.

"It’s no situation unique to the city of Uhrichsville. It’s anywhere that experiences a freeze and thaw period in the wintertime," he says. "When you have a small gap or something in the asphalt, it fills up with water, it freezes and it unfreezes, it just turns into a pothole, and they’re blowing up all over town. "

Dorland says they’ll be doing their best to get the holes filled as soon as possible, but he says there’s not much they can do at this point until the weather improves.

"Just be patient. I’ve only got a three-man service department crew, and once the weather breaks we’re going to start filling the worst ones first but they’re all over town. It’s terrible," he says. 

Dorland says he has also sent an extensive list of roads to the county engineer’s office to get an estimate for repaving this summer, but he says some of those roads might have to wait until 2020. 

"Going off of last year’s estimate, I submitted 13 roadways for paving. The estimate came in at $700,000. Well, we’ve only got about a $260,000 budget so we had to cut them back so we were only able to do six or seven roads last year," he says. "It’ll probably be the same way this year."

In the meantime, Dorland is encouraging residents to just be aware of the road conditions and to be sensible when they’re driving through town.  

STACEY CARMANY, TUSCO TV