{"id":3404,"date":"2011-12-19T15:01:59","date_gmt":"2011-12-19T21:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=3404"},"modified":"2011-12-19T15:01:59","modified_gmt":"2011-12-19T21:01:59","slug":"what-is-the-texas-drought-doing-to-roads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/19\/what-is-the-texas-drought-doing-to-roads\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the Texas Drought Doing to Roads?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3405\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 200px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Potholes along a cemetery road in Dallas \" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/2859913198_00855a7d21_z.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3405\" title=\"2859913198_00855a7d21_z\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/2859913198_00855a7d21_z-300x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/2859913198_00855a7d21_z-300x450.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/2859913198_00855a7d21_z-220x330.jpg 220w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/2859913198_00855a7d21_z.jpg 426w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo by flickr user Coltera\/Creative Commons<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Potholes along a cemetery road in Dallas<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Recently we&#8217;ve looked at how the drought is affecting livestock, farming and even fishing. But it is also taking a toll on roads.<\/p>\n<p>As Lucia Duncan <a href=\"http:\/\/kut.org\/2011\/12\/drought-has-been-hard-on-the-roads-2\/\">reports for KUT<\/a>, &#8220;the dry spell has sucked all the moisture out of Central Texas\u2019s topsoil. And that\u2019s caused cracks to form and bumps to pop up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s happening is that highways are contracting and compacting as they dry out, a normal process that&#8217;s become much worse during the drought.<\/p>\n<p>Recent rains could potentially help alleviate some of this cracking, but the roads likely won&#8217;t be repaired until the cracks have reached their full size, KUT reports.<\/p>\n<p>A potentially dangerous spot? The point where a bridge meets the road can make for a rough bump.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>But some of the road damage is already affecting drivers and needs to be fixed more urgently. &#8220;Sometimes the drought will cause the road to slump right there,&#8221; \u00a0Chris Bishop, with the Texas Department of Transportation said. &#8220;So you have a hard bump, maybe even a hard edge, getting onto the bridge or culvert section.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read the full report at<a href=\"http:\/\/kut.org\/2011\/12\/drought-has-been-hard-on-the-roads-2\/\"> KUT News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently we&#8217;ve looked at how the drought is affecting livestock, farming and even fishing. But it is also taking a toll on roads. As Lucia Duncan reports for KUT, &#8220;the dry spell has sucked all the moisture out of Central Texas\u2019s topsoil. And that\u2019s caused cracks to form and bumps to pop up.&#8221; What&#8217;s happening [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":3405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[61,85],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3404"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3417,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404\/revisions\/3417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}