If you drive past Hermiston High School on a regular basis, you may have noticed that its parking lot has been out of commission since the end of the school year.
As part of its standard preventive maintenance program, the Hermiston School District is having the parking lots of both HHS and Sandstone Middle School resealed.
“They went through and cleaned it, blew out all the cracks, then filled the cracks in, and sprayed what they call an overlay on it,” said Mike Kay, director of operations for the Hermiston School District.
“It’s designed to last another five to seven years,” Kay said. “When the asphalt starts to break down, if you don’t (have it resealed), that’s when you start to see the big chunks falling out of it. You can do this every seven to 10 years, or you could have a catastrophic replacement every 20.”
Workers striped and painted the last section of the HHS parking lot Thursday and plan to have the lot finished by Friday afternoon. The SMS lot will be finished on Monday.
Kay said that these paving projects, along with some related drain structure replacement, cost about $200,000.
“We’re excited to get it done,” he said. “It’s a taxing time. You don’t realize how important your parking lots are until you take them out of service for three weeks.”
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