#bigasspothole: Edmonton mom uses Twitter hashtag to get sinkhole fixed

Laurie Wang says she managed to fast-track pothole repairs in her back alley with just three little words.

Big Ass Pothole.

Wang was miffed when a oversized pothole in the pavement behind her Belgravia home sat unfilled for weeks.

She feared the two-foot-wide crater would swallow up neighbourhood pets or small children.

"It's considered a sinkhole because it's actually the size of my three-year-old boy," Wang said in an interview with CBC Radio's Edmonton AM. "You could literally stick him in it.

Wang tweeted the city a generic complaint about the pothole and her neighbours made a report with 311.

A crew showed up a few days later, but only to lay a sheet of plywood over the hole.

Fed up, Wang decided to escalate her Twitter complaint offensive with the creation of a new hashtag, #bigasspothole.

A few days after tagging the city and Mayor Don Iveson in her tweet, the pothole was being repaired.

"I was trying not to be that whiny person on Twitter so I gave it a few weeks," Wang recalled. "A month is a little bit much so I took a picture of it and tweeted.  

According to the City of Edmonton website, potholes in high-priority locations are inspected within 24 hours and repaired within two days. Residents can expect to have potholes in back alleys inspected within two weeks and repaired within a year.

Wang said she and her neighbours won't hesitate to use the #bigasspothole hashtag again to get repairs crews to pick up the pace.

She believes her crass hashtag got the attention of city officials faster than any conventional pothole complaint could.  

"It was a hazard to anyone walking by it," Wang said. "Everybody's very happy that something is happening."

And as far as Wang knows, no person or animal was swallowed up by the sinkhole before the necessary repair work began this week.