Power outages plague Bloomingdale condo complex

Some Bloomingdale residents in the Park Bloomingdale Condominium complex say they've lost power so frequently in recent weeks they're afraid to stock their freezers.

ComEd officials said Friday their records show no outages at the complex at Butterfield Road and Glengarry Drive west of I-355 since a weather-related failure at the condo coach house on June 26.

Village Manager Dan Wennerholm, however, said the first major outage occurred during the flooding of July 23 when a transformer became submerged.

"Residents understood that was really no one's fault and crews worked to restore power as quickly as possible at that time," Wennerholm said. "But since then, there have been numerous outages, one lasting 36 hours. We've been told these have been related to problems with the underground cables and we continue to attempt to work with the utility."

Resident Anita Venard said the outages have totaled a combined 65 hours, most recently Wednesday night. That's much too long, she said, especially for seniors in the complex, many who rely on medicine and medical machines.

Wennerholm said the utility previously was able to pull power from another source during similar situations, but he thinks it's time for some thorough repairs to be considered.

"This really points to the age of the infrastructure and the need for maintenance," Wennerholm said. "Clearly the incidents we've recorded in that area prove that."