Blown tire, concrete through windshield blamed on pothole, road damage on Powers Boulevard in Colorado Springs

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Daniel Williams avoided serious injury Saturday when a large chuck of concrete pavement flew through the windshield of the car he drove on northbound Powers Boulevard, just south of the Aeroplaza Drive intersection.

"It went through the passenger side," he said, as he held the the piece of concrete. "It hit the passenger seat square in the middle with enough force to bounce off of the front seat, over into the backseat, and bounced around like 3 or 4 more times in the back seat. It even came in contact with the back of my head rest and the back section of (the) shoulder on the seat. I don't know how, but it came to rest under, like right behind my seat, and it's crazy."

Williams sent photos of the damage to KRDO 13's The Road Warrior and said that he's thankful his girlfriend, Aminah Durham -- who normally travels with him -- had stayed home to attend a relative's wedding.

"But I ended up missing it after what happened," she explained. "He and I were talking on speakerphone when I heard a crash, like an explosion."

The car belongs to Durham.

Williams said that the concrete was hurled by the force of a blown tire on the car ahead of him.

"It was a big boom," he described. "And the explosion created this little dust, coming up off the ground like concrete dust. It was almost like a Hollywood effect -- and all of a sudden, out the dust comes this rock flying in the air, flipping. It looked like something out of a YouTube shorts video. And I didn't think it was too big until (it) came through my windshield."

Megan Bower and two of her kids were in the car with the blown tire.

"I noticed it looked like several potholes spread across two lanes and I was in lane closest to the median," she recalled. As I got closer, it was like just a bunch of cracked cement, like damage to the road. So, I slowed down as much as I could -- without slamming on my brakes, of course. And, as I hit that, my tire exploded."

Bower said that her tires are brand new.

"And they're off-road tires," she said. "So, something of serious force made that happen."

Seconds after the blowout, she said that she tried to compose herself and her kids, while glancing behind her and seeing -- to her horror -- that something had crashed through another car's windshield.

"My biggest concern was someone in that car was either dead or dying," she said.

Because of traffic behind them, the drivers of both damaged vehicles slowly drove past the Aeroplaza intersection, continued north to the Airport Road intersection and turned into the parking lot of a Maverik convenience store.

That's where they were noticed by David Oden.

"After I learned what happened, I went back to look at the area myself," he said. "I wanted to make sure it was safe enough for my wife to travel on, because she works nearby at the airport. I told her that she'd be OK if she stayed in the right lane."

The road damage was in the left and center lanes with cracked, broken and sunken concrete; a piece of rebar appears to be poking out from under the pavement -- which may have caused the tire blow-out.

A day after The Road Warrior alerted the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) to the incident, a crew arrived to repair the road damage.

"I have driven over that area before and didn't notice anything unusual," Oden said. "But it seemed to be gradually getting worse."

Williams and Bowen are in the process of getting their vehicles repaired, determining how much they'll have to pay, and filing claims with CDOT.

The damaged area was remarkably similar to another damaged area near Powers and Airport, that CDOT recently repaired and was what many drivers considered one of the two worst pothole-type areas in the city.

The situation raises questions about whether -- with two similar damage areas in close proximity -- there may be underlying issues with concrete pavement on Powers.

Meanwhile, CDOT begins a two-year project Monday to build an overpass at the Powers/Airport intersection.