Pot hole repair –
There is a well-defined process that many islands use in fixing the inevitable potholes. Potholes are endemic to the Caribbean islands because of the weather. The combination of heavy rains and warm weather cause flooding and plant growth that destroy the roadbeds. Once the roadbed is harmed, potholes start appearing like mosquito bites. Let’s first define a pothole. It can be anything from the tire wrecking 24 inch in diameter hole to a whole series of holes and bumps that could be as much as 500 square feet and will literally suck a vehicle into oblivion. The process of fixing them is pretty straightforward and seems to be followed religiously by every island I have visited.
The first step is to wait until the appropriate time to start the process. That appropriate time is typically when several vehicles have disappeared into the pothole and the riders never found. Most of the time this will create a furor with the public demanding that the pothole be fixed.
The next step is to let the pothole expand until it covers so much of the road that the road becomes pretty much impassable. At that point, the road crew finally shows up. They take their can of fluorescent paint and outline the pothole. This can be seen in the picture. Now why would they outline it? After all, you really can’t miss it and it should be obvious the area that needs to be fixed. But I have never seen a pothole that was fixed before it was outlined in the fluorescent paint.
Once outlined, the next step will take place. Now understand this step will take anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months. But the public is now somewhat mollified as they see the fluorescent paint and believe some remedial action is on the horizon. This step is another visit by the road crew who will place traffic cones around the outlined spot. I guess the traffic cones are there to hopefully avoid more cars falling into the abyss and disappearing forever.
The traffic cones are likely to stay in place for at least several weeks by which time most of them have been knocked over and are either laying on their side or have rolled into the traffic lane where they have been flattened like a pancake.
Finally, the road crew will show up with the necessary materials, 3 laborers and 15 supervisors. After a couple hours the pothole has finally been fixed. Up go the cones again.
Now the final step takes place about 4 weeks after the pothole has been fixed. This is the pickup truck that finally comes to pick up whatever cones still remain. Now understand most of the cones have by now disappeared to who knows where. On one island, there is even an enterprising soul who boldly has a sign on his property that he has traffic cones for rent. Hmmm.