About 7,000 Anne Arundel County residents were without power for more than an hour yesterday afternoon after a transformer failure.

The transformer apparently blew because of a faulty part about 4 p.m., said BGE public relations director Darcell H. Guy.

The outage affected private residences and businesses around Gambrills and Odenton. Traffic signals also were affected.

"It was a bit of a traffic mess," Guy said.

BGE employees fixed the equipment by about 5: 15 p.m., and power was restored to the area.

"And that was actually pretty quick, considering it was rush hour," Guy said.

Pub Date: 4/23/99