Solar-Driven Freeway Call Boxes Rained Out
The dreary weather of the past few weeks has not just dampened spirits, it has drained the life out of Orange County’s freeway call boxes.
The 5-year-old boxes, powered by solar batteries, have been getting so little sunshine over the past few weeks that many of them are sending low-battery signals to the Orange County Transportation Authority, the agency that maintains them.
“It’s never happened before,” said Todd Murphy, special projects manager for the OCTA. “We’ve never had so much rain over such a long period of time.”
Murphy said the boxes started sending distress signals Thursday. He said crews were out Friday replacing the batteries, but he cautioned that some motorists may still find a call box that doesn’t work.
“The crews are replacing the batteries in the county’s call boxes as fast as they can,” he said, “but odds are, if this keeps up, there’s a probability that some of these call boxes won’t be able to call the Highway Patrol.”
The county has about 1,100 call boxes. Murphy said San Diego faces the same problem, but officials in Los Angeles aren’t worried because their call boxes are newer.
What would cure the call box blues?
“One sunny day,” said Murphy. “These call boxes need only one sunny day to charge back up.”
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