ComEd: Monday’s storms cause most widespread outage in 4 years, crews working to get power restored to all customers
CHICAGO — Executives for the power company ComEd called Monday night’s line of storms that ripped through Chicagoland the most widespread it has seen in four years, impacting every corner of its service territory.
In a press conference Tuesday morning at ComEd’s Chicago North Headquarters in Avondale to update the power outage situation, company executives said there were about 430,000 customers without power Monday night immediately after the storm.
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But ComEd leadership says more than 206,000 customers — or about 43% — have already gotten their power restored, and they expect to have power restored to about 80% of customers by Wednesday night and 99% of customers by Friday night.
The hardest-hit areas, ComEd executives say, were Joliet and University Park in the southwest suburbs, Streator to the southwest of Chicagoland, and Freeport in the north-central part of Illinois. In all of those areas, ComEd says it will have joint operational command centers up and running to help coordinate efforts with local authorities to get power restored.
ComEd says the major damage to its infrastructure has been downed wires, damaged poles and two high-transmission towers down a stretch of I-55 in Will County, which remains closed. The company also says critical investments in infrastructure since the last incident of this size, in 2020, helped make sure the outage wasn’t worse than it’s been this time around.
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“An outcome that we are so proud of at ComEd is that we do it safely,” Dave Perez, ComEd executive VP and COO, said Tuesday morning.
“And we do make sure that we restore, first, all of our police (and) fire stations. Then we look at hospitals (and) nursing homes, then we look at all critical infrastructure and utilities like water plants, pumping plants, and all other critical infrastructure in our communities.”
ComEd says more than 3,000 utility workers are involved in the efforts to restore power, including more than 1,400 from across the U.S. and another 300-plus from Canada.
To speed up that process, ComEd says Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Monday issued a letter to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol expediting the Canadian crews and border crossing so those utility workers could be in this area by Tuesday to help.
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ComEd says it’s still in the assessment phase, however, and reminds customers that if you see a downed wire, assume it is energized and stay away. The company also asks anyone who sees a downed wire to report it so crews can arrive right away.
Click HERE to view ComEd’s outage map online, which the company says is updated approximately every 15 minutes.
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