Map: What cities in the Houston area get the most claims for pothole damage?

HOUSTON – Channel 2 Investigates checked with Houston and some other cities in our viewing area to see how many received claims from motorists for pothole damage between 2016 and mid-June 2019, and whether the cities paid out on any of those claims.

Here are the results:

  • Conroe: six claims, one payout of $652.18
  • Houston: 101 claims, no payouts
  • Galveston: 20 claims, no payouts
  • Sugar Land: two claims, no payouts
  • La Porte: one claim, no payouts
  • Montgomery: no claims, no payouts
  • Humble: no claims, no payouts
  • Tomball: no claims, no payouts
  • Galena Park: no claims, no payouts

Where are the most pothole complaints in Houston?

Marissa Barnett from the City of Galveston explained why so few claims are paid.

“Under State law, the City is not liable for property damage caused by the condition of its streets," Barnett said. "In short, we have to be notified and made aware of the defect (in this case, a pothole) before an incident and have time to fix it. The city does encourage people to call in and report potholes. Whenever we receive a report, Public Works immediately sends a crew out to patch the pothole. Likewise, in these instances where we receive a claim about a pothole we send the crew out to address the pothole.”

KPRC2 mapped the locations of pothole complaints received by 311 call center and overlayed the median net worth of people who live in those neighborhoods according to census data. The map helps illustrate what neighborhoods are complaining about potholes.

Key: The map below shows the average repair time to fix potholes. The larger the circle, the longer the average repair time. The smaller the circle, the shorter the average repair time. Click on a circle and zoom in to a neighborhood to see details such as the number of days it took to repair all potholes, the total number of potholes in the area, the number of potholes per 10 miles of road, as well as the 2019 Median Net Worth for that area. Purple circles indicate areas with a higher-than-average net worth; red circles indicate areas with a lower net worth.

Map: