Cars Damaged After Heavy Rains Create Potholes On I-15
Oct 5, 2018, 4:16 PM | Updated: 9:57 pm
LEHI, Utah – As many as a dozen motorists damaged their cars and flattened their tires during the morning commute when they hit a big indent on the interstate in Lehi. All of that heavy rain that came down last night washed away some of the road in the work zone.
The Utah Department of Transportation is in the process of widening I-15 in the Tech Corridor in Lehi. They recently put in a 52-inch drainage pipe that runs across all lanes of the interstate. When the excessive rain fell over the last 48 hours, stormwater eroded all of the materials around the pipe exposing a lip in the pavement. Motorists were hitting that two or three inch lip as they drove through.
“This isn’t your typical pothole,” said John Gleason, a spokesman with UDOT.
Many cars passed over that concrete lip at highway speeds.
“Quite a big depression here that the people were hitting,” said Gleason.
About a dozen cars had some damage, and UHP said that troopers helped replace tires.
“Troopers were here to help,” said Sgt. Nick Street. “Some members of the public helped them get those spares on, and get them on their way.”
Alfredo Garcia was on his way to work when he hit that lip at about 60 mph. The impact flattened his front left tire and did some damage to his brakes, too. We caught up with him more than four hours later, as he was getting his car towed away.
UDOT moved quickly to get busy Friday southbound traffic moving again.
“We’ve got the bulk of the repairs complete, right now, which is great news, especially with the Utah State-BYU game down here in Provo tonight,” Gleason said.
In addition to the big football game, many motorists are heading to Southern Utah this evening for the St. George marathon and the start of the elk hunting season.
“It’s going to be a problem, probably for the remainder of the day,” said Street. “We encourage people to be patient with us.”
UDOT is picking up the repair costs for those motorists whose cars were damaged. UDOT still has some more repairs to make to the road overnight. But, they said flow through the area with typical slowdowns throughout the evening.
