Is This Darien Area Suffering More Power Outages?

DARIEN, IL — A resident in a central Darien neighborhood says his area is experiencing more power outages the last couple of months. And he said he hasn't been able to get a reason from ComEd, the electric utility.

Gerry Leganski, who lives in the 7900 block of Farmingdale Drive, told the City Council on Monday the power went out in his neighborhood twice in the last couple of weeks, once on Oct. 25 and once on Sept. 28.

He said he had spoken with a ComEd representative and that the utility's information on the number of outages over the last few years did not reflect what he has experienced.

When the power went out Nov. 5, Leganski said, "there was literally no bad weather at all."

"I'm curious to know if any other aldermen besides maybe people in my neighborhood have had these two outages during (the last two weeks). Anybody?" he asked.

Alderman Ted Schauer said he recently received correspondence from a resident in the 7700 block of Stratford Place about power being out for four or five hours. Schauer's Ward 1 is the western neighbor of Leganski's Ward 4.

"We have no idea why. We had no bad weather," Schauer said.

Leganski said the ComEd representative appeared to be giving information on outages related to one transformer.

"But maybe I could still lose power that maybe doesn't go through the same transformer that he's looking at. I don't know how it all works. I'm no engineer," Leganski said.

Alderman Tom Chlystek, who represents Ward 4, said he was told about the increasing number of outages.

"If that is the case, what needs to be done to address it? What investment has been done?" Chlystek said.

On Tuesday, the city released an email in which ComEd reported seven outages at Leganski's address in the last five years. Among the causes listed were weather, wildlife and damage.

The only recent outages were on Oct. 25 and Nov. 5, the first lasting more than an hour, the second about a half hour, according to ComEd's data.

About a year ago, outages on the southwest side of Darien became an issue during council meetings. That area is in Alderwoman Mary Sullivan's Ward 5. She took the lead in contacting ComEd about the issues.

At the time, she said 90 residents in the Carriage Way West and Brookeridge Creek neighborhoods were suffering far more than their share of outages. Late last year, ComEd began extensive tree trimming in the area, which was believed to be needed to avoid outages, she said.

During Monday's discussion, no one mentioned those neighborhoods.

In response to a Patch inquiry Tuesday, Sullivan said in an email, "I do believe the tree trimming and additional maintenance conducted by ComEd has helped mitigate the outages in specific areas of Ward 5. We were not impacted by the most recent outages that Mr. Leganski referenced last night."