Asphalt Paving in Gautier, MS

Asphalt paving in Gautier starts with drainage, because there is water nearly everywhere you look. Gautier sits at the mouth of the West Pascagoula River, the Singing River, and is surrounded by bayous and wetlands on three sides. Its listed elevation is just 6.6 feet. When the ground under a driveway stays saturated, the stone base loses strength, the asphalt flexes under every car, and cracks follow. A Gautier driveway that lasts is one built to shed water quickly and sit on a base that drains.

Building the base right

On wet sites we dig out soft, organic soil instead of paving over it, then build up compacted crushed stone so the asphalt has a firm layer underneath. Where the yard drains toward the driveway, we shape a swale or add a culvert at the ditch so runoff goes around the pavement, not across it. Raising the drive slightly above the surrounding lawn helps water leave the surface, and it keeps the edges from sitting in wet grass.

A city twice its old size

Gautier annexed land in 2002 and more than doubled its area, to about 32 square miles. The annexed land north of Interstate 10, including the Hickory Hills neighborhood reached from Exit 61, has a mix of older homes, rural lots and newer houses on long drives. Many of those driveways started as gravel or as thin asphalt laid decades ago. We resurface where the base is sound and rebuild where it is not.

Along U.S. 90

U.S. Route 90 runs through the center of Gautier, about 4 miles from Pascagoula and 13 miles from Ocean Springs. It is a state highway, so a new or relocated driveway opening onto it needs a Mississippi Department of Transportation permit, and the state requires any pipe culvert under the drive to meet its design criteria. We handle that paperwork as part of the job for businesses and homes along the corridor.

Sawmill roots, newer neighborhoods

The city is named for Fernando Upton Gautier, who set up a homestead and sawmill at the mouth of the Pascagoula River in 1867. Today it is a city of 19,024 people, with 8,307 housing units in 2020, many in subdivisions built from the 1970s on, when the population went from 2,087 to 8,917 in ten years. Older subdivision driveways from that period are often ready for replacement, while newer ones mostly need crack sealing and sealcoating.

Mosquito season and standing water

Standing water on a driveway is more than a nuisance in a town ringed by wetlands; it softens the pavement and breeds mosquitoes. Correcting low spots during a repair is a simple way to solve both problems.

After Katrina

Katrina hit Gautier on August 29, 2005, and the loss of homes and jobs led to people leaving in 2006. Some driveways were patched quickly in the years after and never rebuilt. If yours has sunken areas that keep coming back, we can find out whether the base was ever repaired.

Call (228) 400-7954 for a free estimate in Gautier. Get a free estimate