Intense heat causes road buckling in Cape; repairs set for Monday

The relentless summer heat pounding down on Missouri roads is causing pavement to lift up and crack without warning.

Cape Girardeau Public Works received a call Thursday around 4:30 p.m. about a road buckling near the intersection of Independence Street and Mt. Auburn Road. Crews responded immediately and put up barricades and signs redirecting traffic. Robert Kutak, traffic operations manager at Cape Girardeau Public Works, and his crew took further action Friday morning.

"We went out first thing this morning and cut a six inch piece of concrete that had buckled out and put in asphalt," Kutak said Friday. "There is a temporary expansion joint too so traffic can run over it for the weekend."

Repairs are planned for Monday, and could take all day. City officials hope to have the road fully operating by the end of the day, but road closure could continue overnight. Traffic can continue to use Mount Auburn Road while Independence traffic will be rerouted to Silver Springs Road during construction, Kutak said.

This is the first call about road buckling that Cape Girardeau Public Works has received this year, but more incidents will come as no surprise with the extreme temperatures.

"We've dealt with road buckling in the past, and it will not be uncommon if we see more," Kutak said.

The Missouri Department of Transportation has seen about five instances of road buckling in Cape Girardeau County and one in Perry County, according to Lawrence Schumer, maintenance superintendent at MoDOT.

"We had one in Perry on Highway 51, another on Highway 177 between Fruitland and P&G and then we had a few on the interstate," Schumer said.

Roads tend to buckle at joints in the road where slabs of asphalt or concrete come together. The heat causes concrete to expand and push against adjacent pieces, and when pressures are intense, the road buckles and bursts upward.

Crews typically go in with jackhammers to remove the buckled road and replace the pieces with temporary asphalt. Traffic obstruction during the project tends to be minimal.

"We flag traffic around because it usually happens in just one lane," Schumer said. "It can take anywhere from an hour to three hours depending on the size of the buckle."

Permanently fixing buckled roads is a bigger project and includes heavy machinery and a larger crew of about five people, according to Schumer. MoDOT has seen projects to fix buckled roads costing anywhere from $800 to $1,000 depending on the nature of the incident.

rpayne@semissourian.com

388-3644

Pertinent address:

Independence Street and Mt. Auburn Road, Cape Girardeau, MO