Lightning cuts power to traffic signals

WILMINGTON — Weekend storms also affected things out on the street. Lightning cut power to traffic signals on several busy streets.

City Traffic engineers say the storm affected signals at 55 intersections throughout the City, 30 of which suffered direct lightning damage.

Most of the signals went into fail-safe, or blinking, mode for hours.

Engineers say drivers were annoyed by the loss of the lights, but add crews they did all they could to get them back up and running.

City Traffic Engineer Donald Bennett said, “We understand that there is some inconvenience to drivers, however, we are talking about computer equipment that operates a lot of these traffic signals. It is exposed to a lot of preventive maintenance, but if lightning strikes, there’s not much you can really do to stop it from running through that computer.”

City engineers say operators worked through Sunday to restore traffic signals. Now all 55 intersections are back in operation.