Potholes are creating dangerous driving conditions for several Chicago-area drivers.
Crews worked overnight on Interstate 90 to fix a pothole in the inbound lanes near Elmhurst Road that claimed at least three cars, officials said.
Another large pothole left at least seven drivers with flat tires Friday night near Deerfield and Castlewood Roads.
“It’s dark, it’s rainy out,” said driver Jennifer Waters. “You don’t even see it and boom you’re in it and boom—right away, there goes your tire.”
“It just hit my tire really hard, popped it, blew it up,” said driver Annabelle Badalpour.
The pothole perils prompted Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to order crews to work seven days a week until April to fill the holes.
Emanuel said crews already have filled more than 18,000 since Wednesday and he expects 20,000 will be filled by the end of the weekend.
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It's an ever-existing problem for Streets and Sanitation workers. Last March, the department reported crews had filled more than 100,000 potholes in 2013, marking a 56 percent increase over the same time period in 2012, when crews had filled 64,000.
It also follows a report from Chicago's inspector general that found the city failed to meet its own deadlines for pothole repairs for the past three years. The inspector general also found that Chicago was reporting inaccurate data to the public that made its pothole performance look better than it was.
