In actuality, there are no true white LEDs.
An LED is capable of producing only one color.. red, green, blue, etc, while white light is a blend of all colors.
To manufacture a white LED requires a trick.
Here is the trick: it is manufactured using an LED that produces a deep blue, almost purple light output. It also uses a blend of phosphors.
Phosphors are excited, or energized by by light of one color, and then emit light of another color. Some emit red, some green, some yellow.
The phosphors in LED bulbs are blended so that when the emitted red, yellow, and green are added to the purplish blue of the LED, their combined output is approximately white, or at least appears white to the human eye.
The phosphorus are actually what wear out over time. This is why LED bulbs lose their brightness over thousands of hours. I suspect with the street lights, the phosphores degraded much more quickly than planned. When the phosphors quit working, you are left with only the purplish blue light of the LED chip.
Bon Jovi had a perfect way to describe the situation when these lights quit working...
It doesn’t make a difference if we’re naked or not.