TAMPA, Fla. — More than two months after Hurricane Helene, a series of street lamps damaged by the storm are still dark along a busy thoroughfare near Downtown Tampa that’s popular with pedestrians.
“It makes absolutely no sense,” said Jamie Scarola, who lives on Harbour Island.
The impacted lights line the Harbour Island Boulevard bridge between Harbour Island and the Tampa Convention Center.
According to multiple Harbour Island residents, the numerous street lamps lost power during Hurricane Helene but never turned back on as power to the area was restored.
One of those residents wrote the ABC Action News I-Team message box asking us to shed light on the literal darkness.
Stephanie Ko, who moved to the island in July, has also noticed the outage.
“Walking over the bridge in the evenings or at night, especially now that the sun’s going down earlier, it’s very dark,” she said.
Ko feels someone could get hurt unless something is done to restore power to the lights.
“I like to walk where it’s well-lit, and if not, I won’t,” she said.
So what is being done? ABC Action News has asked the city and is waiting for a response.
Meanwhile, a Harbour Island neighborhood leader forwarded emails to ABC Action News, which showed that the city was aware of the problem and was trying to fix it.
“We are very concerned about the large outage and welcome urgent restoration to the Harbour Island bridge,” a city engineer wrote in the email chain.
However, a week after the emails were sent, the lights were still dark.
“We’ve been told by their head of lighting that it would be months before anything would happen,” said Larry Premak, the president of the South Neighborhood Association, which represents 657 homes on the south end of the island.
Premak describes the ongoing outage as a “very, very dangerous situation” since the impacted area sees elevated levels of both vehicle and pedestrian traffic daily. Many pedestrians who traverse the dark bridge are visitors traveling between the Convention Center and nearby hotels and eateries.
