Tempers cool over power outages in Morton Grove

A representative from Commonwealth Edison encountered nothing but smooth sailing when he came to the Morton Grove Village Board meeting Monday night to discuss the power outages following storms this summer.

No residents asked questions or made comments following the presentation by Eric Duray, an external affairs representative for the power company. Village trustees were generally complimentary about how well the company communicated with village officials during the outages.

Trustee Shel Marcus said that it would have been nice if all residents could have been privy to the level of communication between ComEd and the village.

“When you lose power, you feel so stressed,” he said. “People want to get some sort of indication of when they can expect to get power back on. I know it’s a crystal ball kind of answer.”

Earlier:

Duray explained that storms this summer have led to far more power outages than usual throughout northern Illinois, including the north suburbs.

Through Aug. 3, 2.4 million ComEd customers had experienced power outages this summer. That's a million more than in 2007, the worst year for power outages before this one. The worst damage happened during a storm July 11, when there were widespread sustained winds of 70 to 85 miles per hour, knocking out power to 900,000 people in ComEd’s service area. But that was only one of five major storms that caused more than 100,000 people to lose power this summer.

The worst storm in terms of power outages in Morton Grove was on June 21, Duray said, when nearly 3,700 of the 9,733 customers in Morton Grove were affected.

Fire Chief Tom Friel said the village is working to collect data about damage caused by the July 23 storm, when some parts of northern Cook County got more than 6 inches of rain. Morton Grove had nearly 5 inches that day, Friel said, and about 60 residents reported damage from the water. The Cook County Emergency Management Agency is collecting the data to give to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to see if the wider area can qualify for any disaster assistance.

The process for putting the power back on

Any time a severe storm disrupts power to a lot of people, ComEd crews work 16 hours on and eight hours off until the problem is taken care of, he said. The first thing they do is make sure the main transmission lines coming from the generators are up, he said. Then they work to make sure hospitals and facilities that can affect public safety are taken care of. After that, they work to fix the problems that will bring power back to the highest number of people. They fix problems that affect individuals and small neighborhoods last.

“Sometimes people say that once you guys got out there, it was a 10-minute fix,” Duray said. “But they don’t always understand that to get to that fix, we had to fix other things up the line.”

Smart grid could help

He also plugged the utility’s plan for “smart grid” technology, which would cost consumers $3 a month for 10 years to improve the way electricity is delivered, by automatically rerouting power to avoid problem areas and using technology that would alert ComEd to problems before consumers call. Legislation allowing the utility to add the charge to electric bills is on Gov. Pat Quinn’s desk.