(Photo by Chuck Clegg) A West Virginia State Policeman directs traffic at a busy intersection to prevent accidents and traffic gridlock during the power outage.

Last Wednesday morning the city of New Martinsville lost power when a transformer near the entrance to Wal-Mart failed. The cascading power lost, tripped the substation across from McDonald’s.

Initial information was that the power company was unsure how long it would take to restore power to the city’s grid. The outage lasted a little more than an hour.

With all power out, traffic signals on W.Va. 2 failed and uniformed officers from both state and city stepped in to direct traffic, keeping it from grid-lock. Power company maintenance crews were at both the transformer and the substation. Once the transformer was replaced, the power company restored the connection to the city’s main power grid.