A few winters back Chicago was patching potholes with ice. They filled the hole with snow, used a jackhammer-style compactor, and then poured water on the finished patch. It was too cold for traditional patching materials, and if they had gotten it patched, the patch would have come out with the next freeze-thaw cycle. This way they just added more snow to re-repair it.
Aerial photos show that a lot of the Alaska road damage was a small area of the road, maybe a couple hundred yards, not miles of road. I wonder if some of it was "liquefaction" at culverts or other wet areas.