Photo of the Day: Pothole Purgatory

Last Saturday, when I first sensed an opening in the brutal snow-ice-extreme cold combination that had gripped my area for the prior month, I drove my car to the supermarket. Approaching the crest of a hill a few blocks from my home, I gasped.

Ahead of me loomed a pothole with the joint circumference of a pair of garbage and recycling barrels in my driveway. What’s more, the crater looked large enough to swallow whole my car (not to mention its driver), like some bad 21^st-century horror movie about the terrors of suburban America.

Evidently, someone must have called the relevant authorities about the danger, because the next day traffic cones had been erected. When I walked by late this afternoon, the cones had been lifted. A stopgap measure had been adopted: the space around the railroad tracks, though not smooth, had been at least partly filled.

My guess is that some areas of major county roads will continue to pose dangers to the tires and shocks of unwary motorists. My street, meanwhile, will probably feature, for a while yet, this scene that I photographed several hours ago. It will stay this way while busier streets receive attention and dollars, until someone finally squawks about it enough to get it fixed.