Power Outage Causes Unsynchronized Traffic Lights in Montgomery County

ROCKVILLE, Md. - For the second time in seven months, there were major headaches for commuters in Montgomery County.

A leaky air conditioner in the computer room at traffic control caused a power outage. Without electricity, transportation officials were not able to synchronize traffic lights at most of the county's 800 intersections. This caused huge backups and delays in some areas for more than two hours.

"I've actually been on the road an hour already, and I only live 10 minutes from here," said George Benitez.

Bill Seipel says his morning commute from Columbia was a nightmare. The problem was compounded on Route 29 by bailout traffic trying to get around an overturned tractor trailer on I-95.

"In this modern age, Montgomery County needs better computers because it's real hard to get to work like this," said Seipel.

Last November, the main traffic control computer crashed and it took two days to repair it. Fortunately this time, it wasn't the actual computer that went down.

The power outage was part of a fail safe system designed to prevent bigger problems. It was a small consolation for commuters stuck in traffic for hours.

Montgomery County's Chief Traffic Engineer Emil Wolanin says a $35 million overhaul is currently underway and will prevent problems like this in the future.

"The 50 intersections we've already switched over worked fine this morning," said Wolanin. "The plan is to complete the project by the summer of 2012."