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Brenna Meredith described the feeling like being in a car accident.
“I couldn’t avoid it and my car just thumped on the ground,” said Meredith. “And I was like oh my gosh that’s not good.”
Meredith wasn’t in a car accident: she ran over a massive pothole on Regal St. near 57th Ave.
“I broke my rim, I broke a piece of my bumper off, all the air was instantly gone out of my tire,” said Meredith. “It’s a dangerous pothole, it was.”
The pothole has since been filled, but Meredith plans to file a damage claim with Spokane County.
“It didn’t just get like that overnight,” said Meredith. “It obviously took days to build up to were it was.”
It’s unlikely that Meredith will collect any money from her claim. According to Spokane County Risk Management, most of the time, pothole claims are not paid.
The County says a person who has filed a claim must prove negligence by first proving the County was aware of the problem and had reasonable time to fix it before any damages occurred.
This winter, the County says they’ve received less than a dozen claims.
Hit a pothole? Choose from the links below to file a claim in the appropriate jurisdiction. Each one will take you to a PDF form:
(story: Joe McHale, KHQ Local News Reporter; photo & video: KHQ.com)