Hurricane Sandy’s massively damaged the infrastructure in NY, NJ, NC, CT and RI. Rapid repair of roads, bridges, water and sewer systems will reduce net costs.

The images from Hurricane Sandy’s wrath in northeastern U.S. states include many of streets inundated with water as well as beachfront highways completely destroyed by storm surges. The loss of life, with nearly 100 storm-related deaths reported and the full tally not yet known (as of 11/2/12), as well as human suffering amongst family and communities where entire neighborhoods were destroyed, is of course of utmost concern. But in the clean up, we can expect to see many streets, roads and highways that are rendered unpassable and consequently will need to be rebuilt.

The Weather Channel predicted above-average warmth for the Southwest, Midwest, Great Lakes and Northeast back in April (of 2012). The fact that highway pavement is buckling in all those places from heat – already in June – is proving that forecast to be on the money.

That’s because scorching summertime temperatures in the 90s and 100s (Fahrenheit – in Celsius that’s about 32 to 38 degrees C and higher) have come early to each of these regions. Already by mid-June, municipalities from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania began dealing with sudden roadway eruptions, caused when the expansion of concrete pavement under extreme temperatures forces sections to buckle. When the first heavy vehicle rolls over those buckles, the pavement crumbles and you get the summer version of a pothole. Asphalt pavement offers a different phenomenon, that of trapped water in sublayers under pavement. Under extreme heat conditions, trapped moisture that cooks under the roadway can literally explode – quite like steam blowing the lid off a pressure cooker.

The concept of what an alley is varies from place to place. But alleys everywhere are in a state of flux, changing and responding to how people live and businesses operate. Some of these changes are pretty exciting – and have a lot to do with how they are paved, and if the potholes are kept at bay.

In Chicago, adherents to the Chicago Plan of 1909 (which was drawn by up by the venerated Daniel Burnham, a design described as “the most influential document in the history of urban planning”), more than 1,400 miles of alleys provide utility access and places for garages for city residents as well as businesses, large and small. By contrast, Manhattan (New York City) has almost no alleys. The difference is most visible in how Chicagoans have their garbage picked up from the alleys, while tony New Yorkers find themselves sidestepping garbage (and garbage smells) that is placed at the curb, at the front doors of multimillion-dollar town homes.

Only in New York, kids… only in New York.

That is closing line on New York Post columnist Cindy Adams’ usual run down of the weird and famous of the Big Apple. But we might say the same of the NYC Department of Transportation’s clever method for communicating the relentless enterprise of pothole repair. The department sponsors a website called The Daily Pothole, which does what you might expect: it provides a tally of the number of potholes filled every day.

For many farmers and residents of rural areas in the U.S., it’s like a step back into time. Due to inadequate road repair funds, several states and counties across America are converting once-paved roads back to gravel.

According to conditions reported in The Wall Street Journal in 2010, the price of petroleum has a lot to do with it. Asphalt is made with aggregate mixed with oil byproducts. With the soaring price of crude, the cost of maintaining and rebuilding asphalt roads has become economically prohibitive to many counties and townships. After they are no longer able repair multiplying potholes that naturally result with age, traffic and seasonal freeze-thaw oscillations, the only affordable option is to convert asphalt roadways into what was there decades ago, crushed stone.