ComEd Earns Kudos for Restoring Power Supply in Chicago

Deadly thunderstorms and high winds disrupted power supply in the Chicago area for many hours over the weekend. After a severe storm hit the area, 360 ComEd workers worked endlessly around the clock to restore power. The sudden violent storms caused power outages for more than 250,000 customers.

According to a press release, as of 8:00 p.m. last night, power had been resumed to over 96,000 customers.

The northern region of Chicago was badly hit and ComEd is working there with the collaboration of municipal officials and local businesses to provide regular updates. Lombard, Elmhurst, Wheaton, Carol Stream, Addison, West Chicago, Villa Park, Roselle, Glendale Heights, Elgin and Glen Ellyn were also hit very hard.

According to the National Weather Service, the western suburbs experienced wind gusts of 60 to 90 mph, heavy rain and pounding hail. In Addison, more than an inch of rain fell in 25 minutes. There were a total of 3,400 lightning strokes recorded, primarily in the west and south.

In order to improve customer service during emergency events like power outages, ComEd is installing its new Mobile Operations Center (MOC) to help speed up the restoration effort. MOC includes25 ComEd engineers, dispatchers and other key storm response team members and comes fully equipped with the latest communications, satellite and video conferencing technology.

ComEd and its municipal partners are operating from a pre-designated location within the community to expedite restoration to public health, life and safety facilities.

The company is expecting restoration efforts to take several days. Most damaging to the ComEd system was lightning and high winds, which uprooted trees, downed power lines and damaged electrical equipment.

The outages are difficult and time-consuming to restore because crews will need to remove limbs and entire trees that snarled wires and snapped poles.

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