Storms have taken a toll on city’s streets

Help Wanted: Need employees to work for city street department to help repair potholes caused by snow and rain. Please hurry!

That was sort of the message from Rick Rhoden, the director of the Pine Bluff Street Department, last week when he was talking to the Traffic and Aviation Committee about the status of his department.

Rhoden said the department was caught up on street repairs last fall. What a difference a few months can make. Rain and more rain and freezing temperatures and two big snowfalls. That will all do a number on asphalt, which expands and contracts and cracks with wear and tear. That gives Mother Nature a good opening to speed the wearing and tearing process along, to the point that one is wondering: Is it my car, or are these streets really that bad?

As most have come to understand, patching holes with shovels of material is hardly fixing the problem. As one worker put it one day, it’ll last until the next big rain comes, referring to the Band-Aid fix they were applying to a bad spot at an intersection.

“We’ve been patching potholes, true enough,” Rhoden said. “But that’s just a temporary fix.”

What needs to happen, he said, is for his department to do some overlay work. That can’t get started until the sand and gravel machine is fixed. (Back of hand applied to temple here.)

Oh, and if you want to help Rhoden and crews, please stop pushing leaves and debris into the ditches and clogging up the works.

“The rain will wash it down and stop up the drainage,” Rhoden said. “That’s one of our biggest issues in Pine Bluff. People rake their leaves and expect the city to pick them up. They should bag them up and let Waste Management have them.”

Rhoden said his department — at the employee count he has now — can’t get much done. But seriously, if you’re looking for a job, he would seem to be the one to talk to.

“I need employees,” he said. “I need truck drivers. We’re short-handed. I need people willing to work.”

And it sounds like a good place to be employed. We recall that a few weeks ago, the mayor honored Rhoden and several employees for working to keep the roads cleared during the big February snowstorms. While others couldn’t get to work, Rhoden’s crew was working long hours. Folks who lay it all on the line to fulfill their jobs are inspirations to be around.