ComEd: No major outages in the suburbs today
Power is back on for people in the suburbs who were without electricity during the subzero cold snap, ComEd says.
“We're currently not seeing any significant outages as a result of the weather,” ComEd spokesman John Schoen said today. “We had a few scattered outages but really no more than we see in a normal day.”
About 24,000 customers in Aurora were without power Monday, some for several hours, and another 800 lost power in Elgin.
Jenna Dooley, 28, of Aurora, lost power around 1 p.m. Monday and watched her thermostat drop from 71 degrees to 66 within an hour, disrupting plans for her anniversary celebration with husband Justin.
“I'm really surprised that it's only been an hour and I'm so cold,” the Northern Illinois Public Radio reporter said Monday. The power returned just as Dooley was contemplating a trip to the coffee shop to recharge her cellphone and wondering how to get out since she has an electric garage door opener. She said if the outage had continued she and her husband would have had to go to a hotel for the night.
Meanwhile, more than 800 Elgin residents were without power along Bluff City Boulevard when they woke up Monday morning, including the office of snow removal company Valley Enterprises Inc.
Owner Craig Mazzola was juggling these problems, along with dealing with snow removal at the local businesses around Elgin. “Our biggest problem was communication,” Mazzola said. “We didn't have the GPS truck locaters with our computers down.”
Mazzola said Valley Enterprises had regained power at 11:30 a.m., along with most of the surrounding area.