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Power restored for most area homes darkened by storm
Updated: August 6, 2012 9:46AM
A heavy rain storm rushed through the northwest suburbs this week, shutting off power to hundreds of residents.
“During the day (July 19) we had about 86 customers out of power,” said Wayne Zingsheim, director of the Park Ridge Public Works Department.
Zingsheim said all of the outages from the July 18 storm were small and scattered across the city. He said power to the last few homes was restored by the evening of July 19.
Park Ridge received about 1.65 inches of rain from the night of July 18 and into the next morning.
“It’s really a substantial amount of precipitation,” Zingsheim said.
Zingsheim said a couple of tree limbs were down, but the city generally had few problems and the stormwater-sewer system worked well.
Peter Falcone, assistant village administrator for the village of Morton Grove, said there were 248 power outages in the village, but that as of the morning of July 20, power was restored to all of them. Morton Grove did not sustain storm-related damage.
The village of Niles saw about a dozen power outages after the Juley 18 storm, according to Assistant Village Manager Steve Vinezeano, but he wasn’t sure if they were all related to that particular storm. He said the outages were scattered across the village.
“Every time this happens I’m always trying to look for patterns,” Vinezeano said.
Krissy Posey, a Commonwealth Edison spokeswoman, said that area-wide, “There was widespread damage due to the storm two days ago.”
Posey said she did not have information specifically related to Niles, Morton Grove or Park Ridge, but she said the western region, such as Rockford, was hit the hardest.
“We’re expecting the last remaining customers’ power to be restored late today, but some may be tomorrow,” Posey said July 20.
