Politics & Government
Morning Storm Pummels Oak Park, River Forest Area
Pockets of power outages, transportation delays and plenty of storm damage reported.
Monday mornings are rarely pleasant.
And then there are Monday mornings when 70 mile per hour winds, house-rattling thunder claps and driving rain wreak havoc on trees and power lines and delay the morning commute.
According to the Metra website, "all Metra lines are experiencing delays varying in length." That includes inbound service on Union Pacific West trains #34 and #32, both of which were scheduled for pre-8:30 a.m. arrivals but have been delayed up to an hour.
Find out what's happening in Oak Park-River Forestfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The Chicago Transit Authority is reporting "major delays on all lines," according to its website.
The severe thunderstorm warning issued by the National Weather Service in Chicago early Monday has expired, but a severe thunderstorm watch remains in effect until noon.
Find out what's happening in Oak Park-River Forestfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
According to ComEd, upward of 80,000 Chicagoland customers are without power, with portions of the western suburbs the hardest hit: a spokesman said 78,000 customers in the western suburbs are reporting outages.
Locally, conditions remain mess. But local public works crews are out in force this morning working to assess and clean up the damage. Here's a rundown of reported damage, according to police radio traffic:
227 Harrison St. in Oak Park
Window caved in
1183 S. Scoville Ave. in Oak Park
Tree on car
1019 S. Humphrey Ave in Oak Park
Tree on wire
800 S. East Avenue in Oak Park
Tree blocking road
Pleasant Street and Ridgeland Ave. in Oak ParkTree partially blocking street
1042 S. Oak Park Ave. in Oak Park
Tree down
1113 Miller Ave. in Oak Park
Very large tree down on alley garage
739 Forest Ave. in Oak Park
Fuse box smoking and sparking
Here's what some of the folks we follow on Twitter are reporting:
@oakparkgirl: Wow, no traffic lights working or power to businesses from 500 s oak park to South blvd in #oakpark
@localop_cathy: no power 800 blk South #OakPark Ave, hope those biz are back in biz soon!
@erictatro: The downside to living in a town with a lot of trees http://post.ly/2NTht
@davesink: Power out in #RiverForest 600 block north Monroe
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