Power connections picking up speed
By Frank Abderholden fabderholden@stmedianetwork.com July 13, 2011 11:14PM
Crews work to remove tree debris from downed power lines on Yorkhouse Road in Beach Park on Wednesday. | Ryan Pagelow~Sun-Times Media
Ice AND
batteries
There was a run on ice and D batteries for flashlights at area stores. The Libertyville Jewel/Osco on Monday night went through five pallets of ice in three hours and all the batteries were gone.
They have been restocked since. The Jewel/Osco in Gurnee had large bags of ice, but were limiting the number of bags to four per customer.
The Ace Hardware in Waukegan happened to get a delivery on Tuesday after the storm, but the store still ran out of generators, fans and D batteries.
“We had a lot in, but it all went pretty fast. We’re hoping to get more in (today),” said manager Scott Nyquist.
Article Extras
Updated: July 14, 2011 11:40AM
Lake County officials are expected to begin totaling the damages Friday as people are still coping with the fallout from the super storm as the pace of restoring power to area residents is picking up.
Meanwhile, Jim and Michele Ross of Waukegan had been the lucky ones. They had not lost power during Monday’s storm at their home in the 1100 block of Hickory Street.
That changed Wednesday morning when suddenly around 10 a.m. the power went out. “We just lost it,” he said, “I hate to call ComEd.”
Jim Ross said they have been sharing their electricity with neighbors Rocky and Sue Kendzior across the street, who lost power right before a family gathering that forced them to heat lasagna on their grill. Contacted again Wednesday evening, Ross said, “We’re still waiting.”
Michele Ross said it’s been very strange at night “to walk around and hear all the generators ... It’s just amazing,” she said.
Just around the corner at North and Douglas, one large tree took out a homeowner’s vehicle and part of the garage. In the front of the house, another large tree toppled into the street taking a power pole and lines with it.
They remain blocking North Avenue all the way to Glen Flora. A number of roads on the city’s North Side remained closed Wednesday because of trees being down and entangled in power lines.
David Motley, city spokesman, said as of Wednesday evening’s conference call with ComEd, there were still 19,536 customers without power. The city has a total of 32,231 customers and ComEd reported Monday morning 27,526 had service disruptions.
He said the utility has 42 crews working in the city and “15 more crews are being deployed to Waukegan right now for a total of 57 crews.”
“ComEd said 99 percent of the customers should be restored by Sunday,” he said. While Waukegan public works is working on clearing the fallen trees and branches, he said it will be weeks before they make a dent in it.
In Gurnee, village officials said 71 percent of the customer base has been restored. There had been 12,000 customers without power after the storm and that was cut to 8,000 by Tuesday night and 5,300 by 10 a.m. Wednesday.
ComEd told the village it estimates that 90 percent of customers in the northern region — which includes all of Lake County — should be restored by midnight tonight, with 99 percent restored by midnight Friday, which is sooner than originally estimated.
The pace of restoration may be quickening. A ComEd spokesman said there were still 158,000 customers without power at 3 p.m. Wednesday and it dropped to 148,000 by 5 p.m., which means regionally, 702,000 customers had been restored.
Lake County Chamber of Commerce chairman Horacio Lopez said this has been “not a fair storm.”
“When we had that ice storm on Ground Hog Day it seemed like we were all affected,” he said, noting area food stores and restaurants have had to throw out food. Restaurants especially can’t run the risk of using food that is questionable, he said. “It affected some more than others.”
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