Power Could Be Out Until Saturday, ComEd Warns Customers

More than half a million homes were without power after Monday's derecho downed trees, power lines and poles across the Chicago area.

By Jonah Meadows, Patch Staff

Aug 10, 2020 4:58 pm CDT | Updated Aug 11, 2020 2:34 pm CDT

ComEd reported hundreds of thousands of customers were without power in the Chicago area amid tornado warnings Monday afternoon. (Eric DeGrechie/Patch)

CHICAGO — After more than half a million Commonwealth Edison customers had their electricity knocked out when Monday's severe weather tore through northern Illinois, company officials said they expect it will take days to restore power to all affected households.

As of Tuesday morning, nearly 7,500 active power outages kept almost 350,000 homes in the dark across the Chicago area. While ComEd technicians had restored power to more than 478,000 buildings, power company officials estimated electricity will not be restored to all customers until Saturday afternoon.

"We expect the vast majority of customers to be restored by Friday and the rest by 3 p.m. Saturday," ComEd spokesperson Cristina Meesenburg said.

Tornado warnings were issued throughout the Chicago area ahead of the arrival of Monday afternoon's derecho — "a widespread, long-lived wind storm," according to the National Weather Service.

It saw winds gusting up to more than 90 mph, hail the size of a quarter and downed trees and power lines reported. Around 4 p.m., a tornado briefly touched down in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood before moving out over Lake Michigan and becoming a waterspout, according to the weather service.

A Commonwealth Edison technician works to clear a power line in Oak Lawn. (Lorraine Swanson/Patch)

In Joliet, 28,000 people were still without power — more than 49 percent of customers there. And more than half of ComEd customers were still without power in Kankakee, Dolton, Harvey, Markham, Sauk Village and South Holland.

Rockford residents reported over 9,000 households without power, and Elmhurst had more than 7,800 remaining outages, leaving more than 41 percent of its ComEd customers in the dark as of noon Tuesday.

ComEd officials said mutual assistance crews have been summoned from other states to help restore power. In a statement, they asked customers to keep reporting any outages — either online or by calling 800-334-7661 — and to "take whatever steps they feel necessary to keep themselves and their families safe during this time."