A wicked ice storm continued to paralyze a swath of suburbs for a second day Friday, leaving tens of thousands of people shivering without heat, creating several overnight shelters and forcing at least one nursing home without power to evacuate.
“I kept as many clothes on as I could and stayed in bed as long as I could,” said Katherine Duffy, 81, of the 850-resident Friendship Village retirement center in Schaumburg, who was awaiting a niece to pick her up.
Without power since 3 a.m. Friday, about 140 of 185 people under nursing care at Friendship Village were being transported to the Lutheran Home and Services for the Aged in Arlington Heights on Friday night, with the remainder being picked up by relatives, said Robin Doeden of Lutheran Home.
Homeowners without power for more than 24 hours resorted to extraordinary measures to stay warm, including turning on their gas stoves just to raise the temperature a few degrees. Homeowners were advised by authorities to run tap water at a trickle in order to keep their pipes from freezing.
Connie Itter of Schaumburg, a mother of three young boys, left her refrigerator of a home and went to Woodfield Mall on Friday afternoon to keep warm. While there, she decided to spend $1,000 on a new washer and dryer, she said.
“When we get electricity, we can wash a lot of clothes,” Itter said.
Several commuter corridors, such as Illinois Highway 62 in Barrington Hills and Roselle Road in Schaumburg, were still without functioning traffic signals Friday. Congestion was compounded by roadways that had been turned into sheets of ice.
Several suburban hotels and motels were filling up fast for a traditionally slow Friday night, as they began offering discounted rates to homeowners without power.
In Lake Zurich, which was learning to live without electricity for more than 24 hours on Friday, Village Manager John Dixon expressed anger that many suburbanites were feeling about Commonwealth Edison.
“We have been lied to, we have been placated, we have been treated as second-class citizens,” Dixon said. “They give whatever line they want and walk out of the room.”
Edison spokesman Marjorie Lipsey said crews were working around the clock to restore power, but Friday’s wet, cold weather slowed repairs.
About 17,000 suburban customers were without power late Friday afternoon in a rectangular area cutting through Aurora, Elgin, Glendale Heights, Hanover Park, Schaumburg, Hoffman Estates, Palatine, Barrington, Lake Zurich, Dundee, Libertyville and Waukegan and partly in De Kalb, Lipsey said.
“Mother Nature is calling the shots,” Lipsey said. “We had hoped that the temperature would be warmer by now, but it’s not.”
Emergency shelters were being set up in several areas Friday night, including Schaumburg High School, Carmel High School in Mundelein and Hoffman Estates Village Hall. A Buffalo Grove police officer, Timothy Gretz, 25, was listed in fair condition Friday in Lutheran General Hospital, Park Ridge, after he was struck by a car while directing traffic during the storm Thursday night.
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In Streamwood, authorities provided portable electrical generators to some homes still without power Friday, including one home where a child was on a respirator, said Deputy Police Chief Larry Knoll.