The islands offered functionally limitless reserves of coral rock, which was crushed and converted into high-quality concrete for asphalt. But the roads linking coral pits to airfields were generally too narrow, and unpaved in many places; frequently they were jammed by traffic, or swamped by tropical downpours. Thousands of tons of crushed coral were needed to pave the runways and service areas—but first the roads had to be widened, graded, and paved, which likewise required thousands of tons of crushed coral.
