A video that went viral this summer showed a vehicle in Cape Girardeau becoming airborne after going over a part of a city street that had buckled in the heat.
Mikhail Chester, an engineering professor at Arizona State University, speaking with NPR’s Juana Summers in June, explained how extreme heat impacts roadways.
"In many ways, we've designed our infrastructures over decades if not centuries for temperatures that have been relatively milder," he said. "So when it comes to a road, we design roads with a particular temperature extreme in mind depending on the particular location where that road is built and maintained, and now, as temperatures are hotter, you're starting to see the dynamics of those extremes take hold, exceeding the design thresholds of those infrastructures and their particular assets."
Concrete roads are more likely to be impacted by heat, according to Colten Harris, superintendent of streets for the City of Springfield Public Works. He said Springfield’s system is largely asphalt so the impact of heat is less likely. "But it can happen," he said, "and in that case it can be bad timing as well."
While the roads in Springfield, for the most part, aren’t impacted by extreme heat, sidewalks are.
"We've got over 500 miles of sidewalk that we maintain and keep up, and there's been five different instances where we call it, it's heaved, and it's kind of tee-peed up," he said. "And that's strictly because we've just had a recurring amount of heat over time. And that doesn't happen very often, again, like I said, we've had five of them. We'll go years without seeing any."
Harris has been in his current position for about four years. The Street Operations Division, he said, is responsible for all the maintenance and construction for the critical infrastructure in the community.
One of the major changes he’s seen over the years is in the area of snow and ice removal.
"On average, we will spread about 2,000 tons of salt a year," he said. "There's a budget there for around $600,000 on average per year. And we noticed, particularly in the last two years, our average of 2,000 tons has really been closer to about 1,000 tons. And so we're seeing a lot less snow and ice event that we're needing to respond to or be able to plow."
According to Harris, based on the last two years of salt usage, they might keep a smaller inventory on hand. But he said they still want to be prepared in case of a heavy snow event.
Stronger than usual storms this year have kept his crews busy.
Winds during severe weather on April 29 and June 29 took down numerous trees around the city.
"The initial storm that happened on 4/29, the initial night, we had over 200 service requests for trees that were down," he said. "At first, you're really in an emergency response mode where you're just trying to get the roads cleared, and you're doing everything you can to make sure the roads are clear and passable. And then the following week is where you're really trying to clean up the community and then that's something that will continue for many months from now."
With tree damage, and as climate change continues to cause more intense rain events, Harris’ crews will stay busy. He said they watch the forecast ahead of expected heavy rainfall and work to clear grates of debris. After a heavy rainfall, they go out again to remove additional debris so water can flow into storm drains.
"Unfortunately, there's places around town where, if we get enough rain, we know that probably we're going to have to block that area off because it's going to cover the road for a time," he said. "And so there's larger projects in the work to try to eliminate those areas, but our stormwater infrastructure throughout the city — it's aging, and we are like many communities where that's not in the forefront always of what people are thinking about and what is needed, but it actually does have an impact on, not just the community, but economic vitality."
Nicolette Zangara is spokesperson for Springfield-Greene County Emergency Management. She said their employees have also been busy this year helping people impacted by the severe storms.
"Just to go back to April 29th, which really kicked off this really busy storm season, we had over 1,000 calls coming in to our public information call center," she said. "That's where we get the storm damage reports, and that's how we know how to send people after the fact. Of those calls, we had over 119 residential structures either majorly affected or destroyed. And that means that they had to go through significant uphill battles to get that repaired."
Zangara said the storm two months later on June 29 damaged or destroyed more than 80 structures across the county.
City Utilities crews have also been busy this year. The April 29 storm damaged power poles and lines across the service area and left thousands without electricity – some for days. Repairs cost the utility company $7 million. The June 29 storm cost CU $5.5 million. The CU Board discussed those costs at its August meeting. They were told it could take years to see partial reimbursement for those costs by the Federal Emergency Management Agency – 75% -- and the State Emergency Management Agency – 10%. But CU’s Chief Financial and Supply Chain Officer Amy Derdall said they have reserves to absorb those costs until they get the reimbursement.
Zangara encourages individuals to take action now to prepare for future storms.
Nico Burasco provided production support for this story.
