The Starke County Highway Department is working throughout the county to address pothole issues.
Highway Superintendent Rik Ritzler told the Starke County Commissioners this week that they are trying to keep up with the potholes.
“We have a lot of potholes from the freeze/thaw cycle because of the excessive rain. It’s the perfect weather for potholes. We’ve been hitting it as hard as we possibly can. We’ve used 750 tons of patch. That’s 1.5 million pounds that has been shoveled out of the back of trucks. Hopefully, we’ll be caught up on these potholes and repairs by mid-summer. Please just be patient and if you notice a pothole call us and we’ll be right on it. We can’t get to everyone immediately, but we’re doing the best we can with that,” explained Ritzler.
Ritzler added that the summer road program will be adjusted due to flood damage.
“How much we do is dependent on when we get reimbursement for this, but we can cover all of the repairs for this and the repairs for the transmission lines in our current budget. It will move the list around a little bit, but we’ll just have to re-prioritize.”
Ritzler also mentioned that the railroad marking upgrades will be done starting in May. The county received a grant for the updates. Traffic Control Specialists will be completing the work.
