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Showers and thundershowers this morning, then cloudy with rain likely during the afternoon. High 63F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Rain showers early, then clear overnight. Low 47F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.

A street light glows purple along an Abilene road Wednesday night.

A street light glows purple along an Abilene road Wednesday night.

A bright purple light has started shining through street lights across the United States, including Abilene. 

Some people started questioning if the lights were dying or — in the case of Manhattan — had been changed out to honor Kansas State University. 

But it’s actually something going awry with the bulbs themselves.

Evergy’s Operation Manager Mike Bowers said he met with other officials from the company on Wednesday morning to find out what is happening and how to fix the lights. 

In January 2020, Bowers oversaw the installation of new light poles and fixtures in Abilene from  Buckeye Avenue to North Mulberry. 

Evergy holds the responsibility of maintaining and fixing the lights, while the city pays for the service. At the time, Evergy focused on bringing LED lights to the community. 

“In the event of being energy minded, LED lights burn less electricity than the normal incandescent light,” Bowers said. “There’s a big push to save electricity and even though we sell it, we want people to conserve it as well. Evergy is a company that made the commitment to change out our street lights to LED street lights along with us and about every utility in the nation.”

While Evergy replaced the old lights with the LEDs, the company who made lights experienced a manufacturing error with the light frequency broad, which created the purple hue. 

“There’s a circuit board and to regulate the light, they have a special chemical paint that they put a dab of this paint on this circuit board that sets the light tone,” Bowers said. “Depending on the chemical makeup of the paint, they paint on the light depends on the light tone that you form the light. This paint is chipping off and exposing that little circuit board to create a purple light.”

Bowers added that Evergy had contacted the manufacturer. 

“We’re patrolling our street lights periodically and they’ve giving us a count of the ones that are turning purple,” he said. “We’re in the process of changing them as we speak, in the city of Abilene and across the entire territory.”

While traditionally, the company drives through their entire Northwest region twice a year to check on the lights, Bowers encourages locals to call Evergy’s outage line at 800-544-4857 if they see an issue with the street lights. 

“We do a complete drive through twice a year, but we depend on our customers to report abnormalities in the lighting,” Bowers said.

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