With hot, slick, extremely sticky goo squirting from a stained metal rod, a Powell city maintenance crew worked numerous 1st Street cracks Wednesday, trying to do little bits of “hot pour cracking” as they can. Crew members followed the “filler” with “crack hoes” to spread out the rubberized asphalt as a city truck towed the industrial-sized “pour pot” slowly ahead.

Hot pour cracking involves heating up blocks of rubberized asphalt in a specially designed oil-jacketed melter and then applying the heated material to cracks in roads and parking lots. It also involves tools with somewhat hilarious names.

Heated sealants create a superior bond to the surrounding asphalt, and keep cracks sealed better, protecting the asphalt from water intrusion for much longer than cold pour sealants. In Powell, there are a lot of cracks in the pavement to be filled.

The problem in fixing them all in the downtown district is clearing the streets of parked cars and trying to avoid shutting busy roads for long periods of time. Thursday the crew plans to start at 6 a.m. in an attempt to repair Bent Street without the need of closing the main street during business hours.

“We’ll see how far we get,” said Powell Streets Superintendent Andy Metzler, adding, “This took way longer than I thought,” while pointing at the two blocks of the street they had just completed.

This isn’t the kind of goo you want to mess with until it dries. Folks, refusing to give the crew space, have stepped in the super goo in previous years. One time a lady lost her shoe, Metzler said.

After a few hours of work the crew headed to Clark Street to repair a section between Fourth and Sixth streets. If you’d like to help the crew, who are willing to work in the cold pre-dawn hours to lessen the inconvenience on residents, avoid parking on Bent Street on Thursday morning and give them space as they work to make life a little better in our fair city.