WILMINGTON — Wilmington Police Department is seeking grant money to better utilize police manpower and improve safety for motorists by keeping traffic signals up and running at major intersections during power outages.
Tuesday, city council approved a resolution for city manager Tony Caudle to apply for $482,000 for WPD to purchase backup generators and a vehicle to haul the equipment, among other supplies. The money is available through a $15-million allocation in the 2021 state budget; the North Carolina Emergency Management Transportation Infrastructure Resiliency Fund grants awarded are 100% funded.
“I’d like to make an important point: It is a no-match fund,” WPD Cpt. Matt Ingram iterated to council.
The city must apply by Mar. 31 to be considered for the grants. Emergency Management Performance Grants assist local and state partners to secure federal funding to prevent, protect and respond to hazards — both natural and manmade.
“As a coastal city, Wilmington is at a high risk for dangerous weather, which often includes power outages,” city spokesperson Jennifer Dandron told Port City Daily. “Having the ability to bring traffic lights back online quickly is a matter of life and death for drivers, pedestrians and officers directing traffic.”
Grant proposals must meet certain criteria, including using the money to prepare and update transportation infrastructure for storms and other events. If awarded, WPD will install manual transfer switches at 188 intersections. Equipment, including 35 generators to add to the 25 WPD already own, and a vehicle to transport it will be purchased.
The goal is to minimize the disruption of traffic flow in the city during storm-recovery efforts, as well as quickly respond to isolated incidents where traffic signals are affected or temporarily offline.
During 2020’s Hurricane Isaias, city crews connected generators to traffic signals at major intersections including Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway and College Road; College Road and Oleander Drive; and Market Street and Eastwood Road.
The city owns 41 of the area’s traffic signals and manages 188 that are owned by the N.C. Department of Transportation. There are nine city personnel responsible for the maintenance of the equipment.
The resolution noted: “Failure to pass the item will result in officers having to be placed in at-risk situations in directing traffic or motorists having to exercise four-way-stop protocols at previously signalized intersections.”
WPD presented a three-minute video from Chief Donny Williams, recorded at the intersection of Military Cutoff and Eastwood Drive, to give councilors an idea of how it will help the department. The chief explained up to five officers would be removed from other duties to rotate manning that particular intersection if it went down.
“You can only put them out there on a hot, humid day or cold day for 20 minutes at a time,” he said. “This intersection normally takes two to three officers. So you would require a fourth and fifth officer to relieve them.”
“And that is not the best utilization of our resources as a police department,” Williams added.
Backing up the power to downed intersections is a passion project the chief said he began pushing years ago. In 1996, he remembered having to direct traffic 12 hours a day during hurricanes Bertha and Fran.
“I made a pledge … if I’m ever in a position where I can do something to avoid officers having to direct traffic and to make our city flow more smoothly, I would,” Williams said in the video.
Currently, the city has 43 intersections that can be run on generator power. Williams has a goal to apply the technology to all 188.
“In addition to the intersections being able to be powered by a generator, they can also be powered by an inverter in some of our patrol cars,” Ingram said.
Grant money also would go toward the purchase of cones that help create roundabouts if, for some reason, a generator or inverter on a car cannot power the lights, the captain explained. It will fund “stop signs, yield signs, and safety lighting that will be portable to those intersections as well.”
If the WPD didn’t apply for the grant, and worked directly from its operating budget, Ingram said it would take upward of a decade to complete Williams’ goal. The $482,000 will help them finish the project by February 2023.
Council members had few questions about the use of funds. Spears asked if utilizing solar generators was an option.
“I think this is a great idea, but I think if we went solar, it would be that much greater,” he said. “And I know Donny likes toys. He says it all the time: He loves toys, he loves gadgets.”
“There’s some great toys, thanks to the chief and you,” Ingram said.
“You mentioned a dedicated truck vehicle for this,” councilman Neil Anderson chimed in. “So I envision a vehicle that sits there for 340 days a year or more and does nothing — which, kind of, is not optimal. … Is there a way to have that vehicle do something else and then when a hurricane approaches, flip it?”
“With the way traffic is in Wilmington, you’d be surprised at the number of intersections that go down on a weekly basis,” Ingram said.
He said the WPD will be able to use the vehicle beyond only power outages. “We currently have a trailer where we keep our [equipment,] but it’s completely out of space,” Ingram detailed. “It’s not very large and this would allow us to move all those items to those intersections without having to find a pickup truck that’s dedicated to be able to pull that trailer as well.”
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