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Geneva, Batavia managing electrical outages

Geneva city officials were urging residents to conserve power Monday after a large part of city was without power Monday morning because a ComEd switch failed, impacting three city substations.

Power went out at about 5:30 a.m. but was restored by about 10:15 a.m. for residents west of the Fox River and south of Route 38, officials said.

The switch acted up again for customers west of Randall and Keslinger roads, but as of 11 a.m. the power was back on.

Dan Dinges, Geneva’s public works director, said crews traced the problem to a ComEd switch that had failed.

“The demand is way up,” Dinges said. “The issue we had was on ComEd’s side. From what we could tell, they had a bad switch. As far as we can tell, it’s holding.”

The city, like many surrounding areas, has a cooling center at its city hall from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Additional locations can be found by clicking here.

Meanwhile, all but six Batavia customers have had their power restored, said Gary Holm, Batavia’s director of public works.

Holm said the individual lines leading directly to these homes are down and require the work of a private electrician before the city can reactivate lines.

Overall, power was restored by 8:45 a.m. Monday for all customers on the city’s northwest side, north of Wilson Street and west of Batavia Avenue, that were hit by Sunday’s severe storm.

“We got hit pretty hard yesterday,” Holm said. “In general, we’re doing really good right now. My guys worked really hard through the night.”

The Kane County Health Department said Monday afternoon some homes and businesses were sill without power. The department also announced a list of cooling centers in the county that can be found by going to http://kanehealth.com/heat.htm.

In addition to listing the cooling centers, the site has various tips on how to stay cool, an air quality index and links to the National Weather Service’s offices in Aurora and Chicago.

Images: Weekend storm damage

  A utility pole lies broken on Western Avenue just north of Navajo Drive in Batavia Monday after a short but powerful storm did considerable damage in the Tri-Cities Sunday. It was one of about six poles in a row that were damaged or leaning on trees. Rick West/rwest@dailyherald.com
  City of Batavia worker Dan Young cleans up downed branches Monday after a short but powerful storm did considerable damage in the Tri-Cities a day earlier. Rick West/rwest@dailyherald.com
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