Dyersburg Municipal Airport officials found out just how much power nature holds when a February lightning storm blasted the lights, electrical transformers and wiring on both sides of the mile-long runway.

Cottrell Electric Co. workers are repairing the damage wrought by the intense Feb. 12 storm. While workers put in long hours and multiple orders for expensive wiring, airport and city officials look into the option of emergency state funding to completely replace the lighting system.

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"There was major damage," said airport manager Joey Spindler, who said he thinks the ground may have been hit by lightning in three or four different places. "There were multiple lights with the filament in the bulbs melted down and multiple transformers blown. They have found multiple breaks in the line on the ground. The workers have been here for three weeks, working on it full time."

"I've never seen anything like this," said Cottrell Electric's Don Cottrell, pointing out the softball-sized chunks of earth that have been crystallized into glass. "And I've been in the business since 1972."

Spindler immediately notified the Federal Aviation Administration that the airport's runway lights were inoperable, limiting use of the airport to daytime operations.

"It's a slow time of the year, anyway, but it has hindered a few operations," said Spindler. "Some local business people have had to alter their plans accordingly, people who fly regularly into Dyersburg."

Electricians are working so quickly to repair the lighting that they are running the wiring across the top of the ground as they replace it; it will buried when the lights are again in working order. Spindler said Cottrell is placing orders for the hundreds and hundreds of feet of the specialty wire needed to restore power to the runway lights as they need it. But once the lights are turned back on, the airport and city will have to look at a way to replace the system.

"The wire is so old that when they fix one section, another one starts to break," said Spindler, who said that the runway lighting system is at least 30 years old, with some of the original wiring dating from its establishment in World War II as an adjunct to the giant Dyersburg Army Air?Base in Halls.

"The city has contacted the state to assist in funds for this emergency repair, and they are putting us on the top of the list for the lights to be replaced. We are on the top of the list for the city and the state for this long-term project."

Spindler estimates that electricians have about 1,000 feet of taxiway and runway-approach lighting fixed along the runway. There are approximately 6,000 feet of lights along the runway.

"It's a long-term objective to replace them all," said Spindler. "The state will come in and help us because it's an expensive, expensive process."