A power outage that occurred last week in La Grange and Western Springs has had a lingering impact.
The village of La Grange reported Sundaythat various areas of the village had power outages over the weekend stemming from the major outage that occurred as a result of equipment failure at the McCook substation. That took place at about 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 11.
“There was another outage between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. Saturday that might have impacted businesses, but they were closed,” said Andrianna Peterson, assistant village manager.
To address the new outage, ComEd brought in generators that were placed at Cossitt and Kensington avenues, at 51st and Ashland avenues and at Brainard and Burlington avenues.
“There is a large portion of the community that’s been on generator power,” Peterson said Monday.
The village’s website stated that while Com Ed was able to restore power temporarily the night of Aug. 11, numerous problems with Com Ed equipment created a ripple effect for system reliability. As a result, generators were powering a significant number of residents and the business district while a permanent repair plan was developed.
Com Ed established a command center and village personnel have been involved in finalizing an action plan and putting that plan into motion, the website states.
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Com Ed plans to make repairs and improvements that will eliminate the need for generators and also improve system reliability in the future, Peterson said.
The plans included the installation of new equipment just north of the tracks on Brainard Avenue, repairs on Cossitt Avenue near 6th Avenue and on Ashland Avenue. Once the repairs were complete and the new equipment is tested, residential and business customers were to be switched back to the power grid from the generators. The switch over was expected to take place Monday provided Com Ed officials thought they could do it without the risk of an outage occurring. If a risk exists, they plan to perform the switch on Tuesday between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.
ComEd is also replacing cables along Cossitt Avenue, which it reports will improve system reliability.
Among the 9,300 ComEd customers in La Grange and Western Springs who lost power Aug. 11 due to the equipment failure was Maureen Nosek, owner of Get in Shape for Women, a fitness studio at 79 S. La Grange Road.
She said her store lost power just as one class was finishing and another was about to start.
“Everyone was in transition mode,” she said. “We closed the studio two hours early.”
She said she looked outside her business “and that’s when I realized the entire business district was out (of power). That’s big stuff,” she said.
Since receiving generator power, she said her business has operated as usual and has not had any outages.
ComEd spokesman David O’Dowd said in a statement about 5,700 customers lost power early Saturday morning but were restored throughout the day with the majority being completed by about 6:30 p.m.
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