Capt. Lawrence Camacho, the police division commander, told the Variety on Friday that they need to work with CUC.
“We will be asking CUC to work with us and give us at least a 10-minute lead before the load shedding starts and the power is shut off,” Camacho said.
He said they cannot deploy police officers to direct traffic at night time and during rainy days as it is “too risky and dangerous.”
He added, “I hope assigning police officers to direct traffic during power outages will not interfere with our daily operations. We’ll just keep our fingers crossed that everything would back to normal with CUC on Sept. 16,” when Aggreko’s power generators will arrive on island.
Department of Public Safety acting Commissioner Santiago F. Tudela said starting yesterday, officers were deployed to the four busiest intersections during power outages: Middle Road-Garapan near Happy Market 2; Microl Corp. in San Jose; Middle Road near the Commonwealth Hospital Center; and the Chalan Kiya-Mobil area.
Tudela said they will come up with other alternative solutions like posting four-way stop signs at intersections.
“This will need public awareness and we will be publishing educational fliers about this issue very soon,” he said.
Traffic unit commander Jerry Ayuyu said they have only eight personnel, but they will work in three shifts to help direct traffic at intersections during power outages.
He is also asking motorists to slow down during power outages.
“Because the scheduling of CUC’s load shedding is not consistent, you need to be careful especially when you come to the intersections. Don’t just run through the lights but slow down, stop and look around before going on. It’s better to be safe than sorry,” Ayuyu said.
