20,300 remain without power in Chicago area

ComEd crews were whittling the number of customers without power due to the blizzard Wednesday, with the bulk of the 20,300 still out as of 7:45 p.m. located in the Chicago.

Chicago has 16,400 customers are without power, the Northern suburbs have 2,700, the South suburbs have 1,000 and the Western suburbs have 130, a ComEd spokeswoman said.

Since the storm struck, ComEd said, crews have restored power to more than 175,000 customers.

ComEd officials reported the wind posed difficulty for crews.

“With the high snow drifts and the high winds, to get to the outage has been a challenge for the crews,” ComEd spokesman Tony Hernandez said. “We’re working as fast as we can to restore power.”

Utilities also were working to restore television and Internet connections.

Comcast spokeswoman Angelynne Amores said the company doesn’t release outage numbers due to “competitive reasons.” She did say that half of 1 percent of Comcast customers had outages, and blamed the majority of those on power outages. She said some repair crews had been turned back from doing work by the National Guard.

DIRECTV said customers who scheduled service calls unrelated to the storm will be contacted via automated phone calls to reschedule their appointments if road conditions prevent service calls. A spokeswoman said there’s a process to expedite services under those conditions.

More than 300 ComEd crews were working Tuesday, Hernandez said. To report an outage, go to comed.com or call (800) EDISON-1.

Comcast customers could call 800-COMCAST to report outages. DIRECTV customers could call 800-DIRECTV for customer service.

Ÿ Daily Herald staff writer Paul Biasco contributed to this report.