Oregon Buckled Roads and Melted Cables are Warning Signs

This week, trapped under a still mountain of warm air called a heat dome, A taste of the future was achieved in the Pacific Northwest.

On Sunday, when temperatures reached 105, the concrete beneath the 544 state road outside Everson, Washington began to form when the concrete actually heats up: it expanded. By 5 p.m., the asphalt on top had smoothed and cracked and left a thick, narrow joint in both lanes. In the south, in Portland, Oregon, a road north of the city was caught around a hole, and authorities took it to close the surrounding streets.

As the heat wave progressed, successes kept coming. Amtrak slowed down the Cascades service trains, worried that the heat would scare away the tracks. Power cables melted on the Portland streetcar, and the service was suspended on Sunday and Monday. The local light rail system was also shut down after the copper head wires fell in the heat to 120 degrees and became unusable.

“As extreme weather becomes more common, we realize that as an agency we need to be more resilient to climate,” says Tyler Graf, a spokesman for TriMet, the agency that runs the light rail system.

Scientists have long warned of more violent and extreme weather events. climate change. Heat waves, floods, storms and hurricanes of 100 or 1,000 years will be more common. Now, the extreme extreme weather in the northwest and the subsequent cracks, setbacks and delays are a reminder that the country has an underfunded and undervalued transportation network when it is not ready.

Aging roads — 50 or 70 years in some cases — contributes to the problem. Over time, water and other debris have moved into the spaces between the concrete slabs that make up the road. When the concrete expands in extreme heat, it rises. “The area that is not regularly exposed to heat poses many challenges for us,” says Morgan Balogh, assistant administrative manager for maintenance and operations at the Washington Department of Transportation.

An unfamiliar event makes it difficult: roads and railways are built differently in different places. Many U.S. highways are mixed with asphalt concrete, crushed stone, gravel, and sand with the name “aggregate” and a smooth, black “binder”. It is the binder that remains for crude oil after refining oil, kerosene and other products; its characteristics depend on where and how it is made. In a dry, hot desert like Arizona, engineers use a hard binder that can withstand high temperatures. In Seattle, binders can be softened at lower temperatures because they don’t seem to get that hot. That’s partly why the normal summer temperatures in Phoenix wreaked havoc on a place like Bellingham, Washington. Also, the wires on the Phoenix light rail system are calibrated to withstand heat up to 120 degrees.

In the extreme heat, the asphalt softens and looks like peanut butter, says Hussain Bahia, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin, who heads the school’s Modified Asphalt Research Center. He says it will go into the oven and become a “liquid liquid”. Persistent heat on unbuilt roads can cause potholes, traces and bumps. Bodies can cause cars to get out of control. When it rains again, they increase the chance of hydroplaning. Excessive heat is particularly harmful on roads because they are unable to withstand stress and spread large loads across surfaces.

As the climate in the regions changes, road builders continue to face difficulties. Some state agencies have begun incorporating the latest climate data into formulas for selecting asphalt mixtures, says Shane Underwood, an associate professor of civil engineering, construction and environmental engineering at North Carolina State University. But no one is yet projecting a hot future, he says. The roads built today will last for decades, but they may not be ready to face the climate of the future. He and colleagues believe that a changing climate could raise road maintenance costs by billions of dollars a year.

“It’s definitely important to integrate science into what the temperature will be when it comes to making decisions,” Underwood says. Agencies will need to strike a fine balance to navigate limited budgets and the cost of different material paths.

Meanwhile, in Washington (DC), politicians are making a new infrastructure deal they have removed the main climate proposals. As the board continues to make its way to the Pacific Northwest how many people died in its heat record, it is not clear whether those in charge understand what is coming or are willing to learn from the recent past.

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