Glen Ellyn board hears from ComEd
Glen Ellyn recently has had to deal with a spate of power outages, and ComEd officials were on hand Monday to answer questions about electrical problems.
Village board trustees said communication is the biggest concern; they want more immediate and accurate information from ComEd when outages occur.
Most recently, on July 8, a truck pulled down two utility poles. In June, a major storm caused thousands to lose power. Then, a few days later, a downed power line hit a gas line.
"That whole week was challenging," said John O'Halloran, external affairs representative for ComEd.
He said the average power restoration takes 60 to 90 minutes, but, when there is major activity, it can take as long as 12 hours.
O'Halloran said that while ComEd needs to do a better job giving out assessment times early in an outage, it can be tough getting that information right away from crews.
Glen Ellyn trustees said communication was the major problem they dealt with during the June 19 storm; information was scarce.
Village President Mark Pfefferman said he wanted to make sure ComEd informed the village about what's being done to lessen the chance of outages; the company said it is working on that in the Glen Ellyn area.
Trustee Michelle Thorsell acknowledged communication has greatly improved since problems during storms in 2007.
The board also discussed internal messaging to village residents to let them know of emergencies or other problems, such as outages. DU-COMM, the public safety communication system that Glen Ellyn is part of, already is looking at a reverse 911 system.
Pfefferman also took advantage of a message board at glen-ellyn.com, an independent site, during the June 19 storm to update citizens. However, for the first time, the village put into writing their protocol for emergency notification.
"We use the Web site as a focal point," Village Manager Steve Jones said of the village-owned glenellyn.org. He said the village also runs loops of information at 1620-AM and is looking at the possibility of messages on cable television.
"We try to really target things to people when they need it," he said.