MARYSVILLE — City of Marysville traffic engineers spent May 3 chasing the effects of the day’s windstorm.

“In the early morning, the traffic lights at the intersections of State Avenue with First, Grove and 67th streets were all down, but they’ve all come back,” city traffic engineer John Tatum said at approximately 3:30 p.m. on May 3. “Right now, the State Avenue intersections with Third, Fourth and Sixth streets have gone dark, and it could be well into the evening commute before those come back. The outages have been rotating all day.”

Tatum and Tom King, senior traffic control systems technician for the city, repaired wind damage at the intersection of State Avenue and 99th Place, right next to the Fred Meyer sign, where wind had turned the directional cameras the wrong way. After that, King headed south to the intersection of State Avenue and Sixth Street, one of the 17 signaled traffic intersections in the city without a battery backup. The other 18 out of the city’s 35 signaled traffic intersections have battery backups that supply two hours of power in case of power outages.

“See, normally this would be all lit up,” King said as he opened up the signal’s control panel, just off Sixth Avenue in Comeford Park. “Once the power comes back, it’ll go into startup mode, so that all the motorists and pedestrians will be served.”

As King logged the status of the signal in the log book in the control panel, he reflected on how this windstorm compared to previous ones.

“I’ve lived here 57 years and never seen winds like this in May,” King said. “I’d expect these 50-60 mile-per-hour gusts in March or November. My mom’s 96, and she can’t ever remember it blowing like this during this time of year.”

Marysville Police Cmdr. Robb Lamoureux reminded motorists and pedestrians alike to treat non-operating signaled traffic intersections as four-way stops, and to watch out for downed power lines.

Neil Neroutsos, of the Snohomish County Public Utility District, reported at approximately 5 p.m. on May 3 that an estimated 1,100 Marysville residents were without power.

“Earlier on, it was more in the east of Marysville, but now, it’s more in central Marysville,” Neroutsos said. “It’s been scattered throughout Marysville during the day, though.”

Neroutsos could not estimate when those residents’ power would be restored, but he promised that PUD crews would work into the evening until all residents’ power was restored.