‘Hardest hit’ towns should have power by today
BY DAN MORAN dmoran@stmedianetwork.com July 14, 2011 10:52PM
Fidel Marquez, senior vice president of ComEd customer operations, speaks during a news conference on Newcastle Road in Waukegan.
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Updated: July 15, 2011 2:32AM
WAUKEGAN — Newcastle Road resident Paula Lavely had been without power since Monday morning, so she took note Thursday afternoon when ComEd officials went before the media just down the block.
“As long as it doesn’t rain, I’ll be OK,” Lavely said. “But I have a sump pump without power, so if it rains, I’ll have a flood.”
What Lavely heard was a prediction that if the skies stayed dry through Friday night, her basement might also remain dry.
ComEd spokesman Fidel Marquez reported that the utility had set a goal of having 95 percent of its blacked-out customers back in service by midnight Thursday, with the percentage projected to be 99 percent by the end of Friday.
“We do understand how critical electricity is to our customers, (and) we’re working very, very hard to get everyone back in service,” said Marquez, adding that 88,000 customers remained without power as of 1 p.m. Thursday, with the majority of that total in Lake County.
ComEd reported Thursday that the “hardest hit towns” in the power outage were Gurnee, Round Lake Beach, Waukegan and Crystal Lake.
According to Marquez, 850 crews from ComEd and out-of-state utilities had replaced 50 miles of downed wire and 300 damaged poles since Monday’s storm, which left an initial 850,000 without power. He added that ComEd employees had been working shifts of 16 hours on and eight off since Monday.
Similar to what was seen at a Tuesday press conference in Gurnee, Marquez was asked about complaints from residents in specific communities about lack of work crews in their area. He was also asked why Six Flags Great America had its power restored before Vista East Medical Center in Waukegan.
Vista East was without power for just over two days and had to rely on generators and reduced power usage. The hospital used about 30 portable cooling units and 100 fans to keep patient areas cool during the outage, said John Griffin, director of marketing and public relations.
The operating room and emergency rooms had full power and the food service company, Sodexo, sent a refrigeration truck to preserve the food they had, but because of the outage they did not do a lot of cooking. A second back-up generator was brought in as a safety measure.
CEO Barbara Martin was in contact with ComEd officials from the start and she enlisted the help of state Sen. Terry Link, D-Waukegan, on Tuesday, and he toured the facility Wednesday when power was restored. Vista West was not affected by the outage. In Lindenhurst, Vista facilities lost power Monday, but were back up Tuesday.
While Marquez said that public-health facilities are a priority for restoration following a power outage, he didn’t have specific information on the Vista situation. He added that, generally speaking, “you have to restore everything upstream first” before lines to particular areas or customers can be energized.
“It’s a painstaking and very careful process,” he said. “For one thing, you don’t want to be energizing a line when a crew is still working on it.”
At one point, Marquez was asked if and when ComEd might do away with pole-mounted lines and put its connections underground. Remarking that the subject can produce “a healthy debate,” Marquez added that improvements to the system are a matter of finance.
“This storm is going to cost us tens of millions of dollars,” he said. “Burying underground cable (would cost) billions of dollars.”
After Marquez spoke to the media, several trucks pulled out of the neighborhood, which he said was an indication that all local repairs had been made and circuits might be ready to be re-started. For residents like Lavely, the return of power would bring a primitive week to an end.
“For the (June 30) storm, we lost power for about 15 hours and I threw a couple of things out,” she said. “This time, the first 48 hours was hard, but then you kind of get used to it, walking around with flashlights all the time ... It’s embarrassing when you have to go out to your car and turn it on just to listen to the news about what’s going on.”
Frank Abderholden
contributed to this report
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