It happens every winter, much to the bane of motorists and city street crews.
As the snows melt and disappear, pot holes and  cracks in driving surfaces begin to appear.
“We’ve been seeing a lot,” said Mike Crawford, Great Bend street superintendent. But, “it’s that time of year. It’s going to happen.”
Here’s the problem.
If there is a crack in a paved road, it may become filled with water or snow that melts. And then when it freezes, the ice actually has larger volume then its previous liquid state, thus exerting pressure on the walls of the fissure, making it larger. 
For example, if one takes a sealed plastic container like a water bottle filled to the brim and freezes it, they may find that the bottle may actually split.
The process of continual thawing and freezing is like driving a wedge in the crack, eventually causing the surface material to separate from the base, which leads to breaks or pot holes.
For now, Crawford and his Public Works Street Division crews are working at a frenzied pace, filling holes with a temporary material. Known as “winter patch,” it is an asphalt mixture that will hold up for a while, but not for the long term.
Why not take care of the problems permanently? “Permanent patch is not widely available this time of year,” Crawford said.
Asphalt plants don’t normally ramp up production of this product until warmer weather arrives. Crawford could go to Hutchinson and bring it back to Great Bend.
But there is a problem with this. The material is produced as needed at a temperature of about 350 degrees.
So, en route from Hutchinson to Great Bend, it starts to cool, losing its effectiveness. “It has a very limited shelf life,” Crawford said, adding they only have about a one-day window.
It can be reheated once. But any more than that, and the oils get cooked out, rendering it useless.
Another permanent solution is to use concrete. Crawford said this is done if the damage is too severe to be fixed with winter patch, even though they prefer to fix asphalt with asphalt.
Winter can cause the same problems for concrete streets and other surfaces, which are more easily repaired permanently with concrete.