ComEd Outage Creates Ice Shortage in Chicagoland

Like a woman on a mission, 46-year-old Sharron Ventura bolted inside a Walgreens in Morton Grove and quickly approached the cashier to ask: “Do you have any ice? Everybody’s all out.”

Ventura’s concerns are legitimate, as major grocery stores in  Chicagoland and the North Shore are out of one cold commodity: Ice.

Luckily, the Jewel Food Store at 7900 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Niles, had ice Tuesday afternoon. 

As for Ventura, she drove up from Kankakee to check on her elderly mother after she got news of ComEd’s power outage. More than  and Ventura, a mother of two, travelled more than 60 miles in her tiny SUV Geo Tracker to check on her mom.

Unfortunately, Ventura’s vehicle doesn’t have AC – but she can bear that, she said. She is more concerned for her mother, who is currently killing time at the Skokie Public Library.

“I’ve been to Jewel, Dominick’s and they're all out,” she said. “The heat doesn’t help the situation either.”

She's worried about how her 73-year-old mother is going to fare without electricity.

“If [my mother’s] power doesn’t get restored today I’m gonna’ book a hotel through Hotwire for the night,” she said. “It’s just too hot. Unbelievable.”

An employee at the Walgreen’s in Morton Grove – who asked to have her name withheld – said the store has seen a high number of customers asking for ice since the recent outage.

“We’ve got ice,” she said. “Maybe its because people don’t think of Walgreens when they think of ice, but we got it. … People are still coming in today asking for [ice] though a lot more came in yesterday.”

Matt MacKellar, an employee at the Skokie Public Library, said the branch’s phone lines have been buiser than usual.

“We’ve been getting a lot of call from people asking whether we have Internet access,” MacKellar said. “Our Internet is fine and a lot of people are just using the computers.”

Recently, Skokie Patch  That could explain the high demand for Internet use at the local library.

Meanwhile, the following supermarkets are without ice in the general North Shore area: 

• Jewel, Skokie, 9449 Skokie Blvd.
• Jewel, Wimette, 411 Green Bay Road
• Jewel, Wilmette, 1517 Sheridan Road
• Food-4-Less, Evanston, 2400 Main St.
• Dominicks, Morton Grove, 6931 Dempster St.
• Dominicks, Wilmette, no power, no ice, 2748 Green Bay Road

Note there may be more grocery stores without ice, so please call before making the trip.