BUFFALO, N.Y. – The potholes may be coming back.
Although some never went away, county and municipal crews had been patching what they could in the weeks prior to the March 1 snow storm that dumped between a foot and two feet of heavy snow across Western New York.
Because of all that plowing, some of the temporary cold patches are likely to come loose.
"As Spring has it, March always throws us a few decent snow events, and today looks like one of those,” said Erie County’s commissioner of public works, William Geary.
Indeed, March is off to a snowy start, and the healthy dose of heavy snow that coated the area required a lot of plows to scrape it off the roads.
“Some of the work that DPW employees have been doing over the past couple of weeks is going to be removed by the plows. Hopefully for the most part, a lot of it stays,” Geary said.
Erie County crews will try to hit potholes early next week for the third or even the fourth time this season.
The City of Buffalo anticipates previously patched potholes popping up again, too.
"There's going to be some catchup when this is done…we understand that,” said Buffalo DPW commissioner Steve Stepniak in a Friday media briefing.
Prior to Thursday night's snow, 2 On Your Side has been keeping on top of the suburbs, too.
Many viewers had complained about roads that run through Amherst.
"We will go out every day looking for potholes and answering complaints and filling the potholes with the cold patch,” said Town of Amherst highway supervisor Patrick Lucey.
Lucey acknowledged it’s been a rough season, but he also said Amherst roads are often confused with county roads, and that it’s been a few of the county roads – like Hopkins, North French, Dodge, and Maple – that have received the bulk of complaints.
So how does Lucey help constituents to distinguish?
"If we get an e-mail or a call, we tell them whose jurisdiction it is, whether it's New York State, Erie County, or Town of Amherst…we will make the notification if it's not our road, like to Erie County, we'll notify them that we got this complaint,” Lucey said.
Lucey said Amherst and the county have good communication, and that from there, the county would then respond to a road like Maple, Hopkins, Dodge or North French.
Regardless of county or town, the March storm is at least a small setback in the ongoing battle to keep up with potholes.