Maryland Traffic Snarled by an Unlikely Suspect

Maryland drivers got quite the surprise during their Monday morning commute: a giant windmill blade, sprawled across a local highway. A rep for the state's Department of Transportation tells WTOP that a tractor-trailer transporting the wind turbine piece hit a guardrail and overturned shortly after 5am local time on Interstate 70, not far from Hagerstown in Washington County. ABC 7 features state DOT video of the blade stretching past the lane it's stuck in, across the grassy median and into traffic flowing in the opposite direction.

The Hill notes that although initial reports said there were no injuries, state police confirmed that one person had been hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. Nearly all lanes on both sides of the interstate were closed down, the westbound ones for nearly three hours while authorities attempted to drag the fallen blade off the highway. By a little after 8am, the blade was gone and traffic was seen once again flowing normally.