NATCHEZ, Miss. – Mayor Dan Gibson said he’s confident a vibrant, multimillion-dollar relighting of the Natchez-Vidalia bridges will be done as he continues seeking state and federal funds for the Mississippi River display.
“The bridges are going to be brought back to life,” he said, “to have a light show every evening after sunset.”
The two bridges were illuminated with white lights installed in 2010, but they deteriorated and were removed in 2018. The lights gave the bridges an icy glow that made them a sightseeing spectacle.
Since becoming Natchez mayor last year, Gibson has been working with Mississippi and Louisiana government officials to get new bridge lights. While cost projections ranged up as high as $16 million, the estimate is now about $5.7 million for the aesthetic lights, Gibson said Tuesday.
He said he’s enlisted the technical help of two lighting companies – Arkansas-based Curtis Stout and Lumenpulse of Canada – that specialize in special-effect illuminations and bridge lighting. They’ve been involved in shining such landmarks as the Mississippi Capitol, the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock and the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge in Connecticut.
Gibson said he’s traveling to Washington, D.C., next month to try persuading U.S. congressmen to allocate funds for illuminating the river spans. He’s also going to the Mississippi Legislature, which begins its annual session in January. There have been no official commitments for funds, “but we are encouraged,” the mayor said.
Gibson noted Vidalia Mayor Buz Craft and Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser have also taken special interest in the bridge-lighting project.
The old lights were installed by the Mississippi Department of Transportation at a reported $3 million cost footed largely by federal funds. However, the lighting system was problem-prone with occasional outages and other glitches. MDOT took the lights off during a bridge-refurbishing project completed in 2018.
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