WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) -- Metro is apologizing after a supposedly uninterruptable power supply failed last night, cutting off communications and leaving people stranded on trains and platforms for an hour.
If you've ever been stuck in your car, stop and go traffic, and not a darn thing on the radio to explain what the heck is going on, then you'll have some sense how riders felt on Metro felt last night.
The public address system, the emails, the texts all stopped when the power failed in the control room that handles both trains and buses. Workers were already out on the tracks upgrading the rails -- and without radio communication -- Metro halted the trains to keep the workers safe.
"We're investigating the reason, but there was obviously a failure that should not have happened," says Metro spokesman Dan Stessel.
Metro failed even to communicate by Twitter, which left some riders seething. "Was just stuck on Metro between Capitol South and Eastern Market for an hour. Fun times," said GarberDC.
"I want to go home Red Line. Communication outage has left us standing here for an hour," tweeted DrJLCPhd.
It wasn't until the next morning that Metro promised to do better -- but not everyone's buying it. "Liar Liar! Pants on fire," said DinoDC, "the tweets give PROOF that the problem wasn't 15 minutes."
"Not being able to communicate, that to customers leads to uncertainty, leads to confusion," said Stessel. "Frustration? Anger?" I asked him. "All those things are understandable. We need to do better in the future."
The Red Line is now 36 years old. Metro's spending billions to fix the things that whack a lot of us when we get old. But like wrinkle cream, it may take a while to work.
Metro is rolling out a redundant alert system next month that should let riders know what's going on even if there's another power failure like this one.
Written and Reported by Bruce Leshan
9News Now & wusa9.com
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