And then there was light

Sir,
On last Thursday morning we arrived in Pietermaritzburg during the early-morning rush-hour, only to find that the traffic lights at the first intersection were not working.
Drivers were all nervously cautious as they treated the intersection as a four-way stop, but with that amount of traffic flow and no traffic officer on duty, there is always the possibility of someone jumping the gun.
We breathed a sigh of relief as we safely negotiated our way across the intersection. We realised that something was amiss when we encountered the same problem all the way through to about the sixth intersection. On the way back in the early part of the afternoon, nothing had changed.
All of the shops we visited in that section of the town were in utter darkness.
None of the towns on our return journey had traffic lights working, and it made one realise just how dependant one is on electricity. On arrival home we encountered the same problem; a hot cup of tea would have saved the day, but alas, we had to patiently wait until the lights came on. It appears that we are going to have to get used to the idea of electricity outages unless folk learn to switch off lights that burn unnecessarily. How about the lights around the Oval, which often burn late into the night?
A Nell