'Everyone Is Fighting For Asphalt' After LA Storms. Your Guide To Potholes And Recouping Damages

From craters creating debris on the 5 Freeway in Glendale to the upcoming weekend closure of the 71 Freeway in Pomona for pothole repair, our roads are taking a hit.

March proved to be a terrible time for potholes, as pounding storms contributed to a big uptick in reports. LAist has been keeping an eye on potholes during our many storms — here's what we've learned.

The latest pothole numbers

As of April 6, city officials said the number of reported potholes had reached about 7,000.

Just weeks earlier, Elena Stern, a public information director at the city of Los Angeles Department of Public Works, told us the amount of potholes has been far more than usual.

Between March 1 and March 22, people called in 5,869 potholes in the city of L.A. — that's not counting our freeways or unincorporated areas. Roughly 279 reports a day have come in, a spike from the storms in December and January. (Back then, even the 133 reports a day knocked out the 30-a-day average that the Bureau of Street Services has had in the past.)

About 3,994 of those latest potholes are already repaired, and 1,875 are outstanding, meaning they're open cases or still pending inspection. Bad weather typically slows down crews because of concerns about using equipment in the rain.

"It has to be safe for the sheer number that they have to address," Stern said. "It’s exhausting. These men and women show up every day and have a can-do attitude. They work tirelessly."

At a news conference in early April, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass cautioned that the wait for repairs could be a lot longer than usual. City officials said instead of waiting 1-3 days, people reporting pothols can expect repairs to take a week to 10 days.

Highway damage

The run of storms has taken a toll on our highways too. Between Jan. 1 and March 20, Caltrans District 7, which manages the highway system in L.A. and Ventura counties, filled in more than 8,000 potholes.

"Everyone is fighting for asphalt right now," said Eric Menjivar, a public information officer. "We've just seen a significant uptick. It's out of the norm."

These asphalt craters are some of the most annoying parts about driving, and they can be costly. Here’s what to do if you come across them:

How do I report potholes?

L.A. city, unincorporated areas of the county and Caltrans rely on us to report potholes. So if you see one, you should definitely let them know. Once they’re aware, a pothole could be filled in a matter of days.

When former mayor Eric Garcetti was in office, he directed the street services bureau to shorten its turnaround time to five days, but Stern says before this latest spike they’d become even faster.

“It’s actually two days for us to get to a pothole, for us to receive information about it and to fill it,” Stern told LAist. The L.A. County response is also a 48-hour turnaround.

Of course, as we noted earlier, that's the timeline during normal weather — which is not what we've experienced so far this year.

To report a pothole in the city, call 311 or make a request using the city's MyLA311 website and “Submit Service Request” feature. You can keep tabs on your report’s progress by following up with MyLA311 using your ticket’s tracking number. According to the bureau, you can also ask for a street service supervisor to call you with updates.

Caltrans, on the other hand, fills potholes based on severity, the location and potential risk to drivers.

"Whenever there's a disruption to traffic flow, or, for example, if we're getting reports that multiple vehicles are getting their tires blown out because of a pothole, we'll go and repair those quickly," said Menjivar.

You can report highway potholes to Caltrans by using its customer service website.

If you’re in an unincorporated part of L.A. County and have a pothole, call 800-675-HELP (4357), or you can log a request with Public Works’ online pothole form.

My car was damaged by a pothole. What can I do?

If this happens to you, you can and should ask for money back! Car damages repairs from potholes can quickly rack up bills in the thousands. Get paid!

If your car is damaged from a pothole, take pictures of it and your car. Then, fill out and submit a claim form online with the city of L.A. (if that’s where you had a close encounter with a pothole) to seek reimbursement for the damage. If the damage happened in an unincorporated area, you’ll have to print and mail a different claim form. For Caltrans damage claims, follow the filing directions here.

There are time limits to this, so make sure to file your claim as soon as possible. For damages to personal property, there's a six-month filing period. Check out these tips for winning a claim.