ABCs of streetlight outages
SHED A LITTLE LIGHT ON THE SUBJECT: That’s what Kevin would like when it comes to the dark streets in the metro area. From the interstates to the Sunport, Cottonwood Mall to Montgomery, Kevin says there are stretches where multiple street lights are out, some for weeks or even months. So what’s up? Dan Ware, who handles information for PNM, explains that the first step is knowing that a light is out.
“It’s incumbent upon residents to call us and report streetlight outages as quickly as possible and not assume that someone else already has or that we automatically know if one is out,” he says. “Just like if your power is out at home. Most of the time, unless you report you have an outage, we have no way of knowing.”
For the time being, Ware says folks should contact PNM to report an outage, either at pnm.com or by calling 888-3425766.
The next step is figuring out whose light it is.
“For Albuquerque proper, we now maintain approximately 11,000 lights,” Ware explains. “Citelum now has the city contract for fixing their streetlights. When Citelum assumed the city light maintenance, we turned over any city work orders we had and they have been in the process of fixing those.”
And determining who is responsible for what is not as easy as it sounds. That’s why, Ware says, “we’re currently talking with the city about helping them create a GISbased (geographic information system) mapping system that easily identifies which lights are theirs and which are ours. This way, if someone calls 311, their operators would have a user-friendly database to tap into. We determined the complex mapping system our service center uses wouldn’t be feasible to share, so that’s why we’ve been talking with the city on creating their own.”
Until that’s further along, Ware says’s it’s speedier to report outages to PNM, which then will “either forward the call to Citelum or take down the information and put it into our queue.”
The last step is getting the light(s) back on.
And that can involve something as seemingly straightforward as repairing a mechanical failure. Ware says on the easy side, “sometimes it’s simply a bulb that needs to be replaced.” And “vehicle damage is a big problem, too.”
“Other times, it’s more complex. Vandalism and theft have been a recurring theme in recent years, and those take far longer to fix. It’s our hope that now that Citelum is handling the city lights, our combined efforts will be able to get through the work orders a lot faster.”
But Ware — and likely the repair and maintenance crews — would like to share that “when it comes to fixing the lights, folks have to remember that our crews as well as companies we contract with are out there almost every day fixing lights in parts of the city. But they are also doing other things, too. Repairing lines and transformers, replacing poles and more. During the windy spring and monsoon season, outages become a big part of the picture as well.
“We realize that safety is a major concern and that folks feel more secure when the street lights work. That’s why we’re out there every day trying to get these lights fixed as quickly as possible.”