As rain began, yet again, to fall on Homewood-Flossmoor High School Thursday afternoon, a representative from ComEd reported that about 52,000 Chicago area customers, mostly in the south and southwest suburbs, remained without power from Tuesday’s storms.
Jeremy Smith, vice president of distribution operations at the energy company, said he expected electricity would be restored to about 99% of customers by 11 p.m. on Saturday.
“There will be pockets that go into Sunday,” Smith said from the parking lot adjacent to Homewood-Flossmoor High School’s performing arts center. “We are closely monitoring this weather. It may delay us slightly, but we will stay in constant communication with that.”
Two students, Kaylee Proctor and Danielle Brown, spent the afternoon running meals to people who pulled up to Flossmoor Community Church in their vehicles. Volunteers from A Perfect Harmony catering company, youth nonprofit You Matter 2 and On the Pull Up Mobile Kitchen ran out of meals and backpacks full of school supplies they were handing out by 2 p.m.
Brown, who lives just down the street from the church, said she saw the destruction caused by Tuesday’s storms firsthand and felt it was important to assist others.
“I have a generator, but not everyone has something like (that) or is able to go out and get food,” the 16-year-old said. “So I just wanted to give back and help people who are in a very tough situation right now.”
Both Brown and Proctor said they were supposed resume classes on Monday, Homewood-Flossmoor High School remained closed to student activities, athletics and staff meetings for the rest of this week. Proctor, 17, said she was supposed to be back for tennis trials, which were delayed.
Homewood Mayor Rich Hofeld said ComEd told him Thursday morning about about 58% of the village of more than 19,000 people remained without power.
He said driving downtown that morning, the usually vibrant downtown area felt lifeless.
“My concern is the businesses, particularly those that have perishables,” he said. “The restaurants in the downtown are dark … Unless they have generators, right? But to be honest with you, I didn’t hear any humming.”
Village services remained curtailed, Hofeld said, with a “skeleton staff” working largely from home as Village Hall is without air conditioning.
The mayor was grateful for what he said was a swift response from ComEd as community members express fatigue from back-to-back severe weather events. Just two weeks earlier, three tornadoes were confirmed in the south and southwest suburbs, including an EF-1 tornado that passed through Hazel Crest, Homewood, Country Club Hills and Harvey.
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“People are, I hate to say resigned to it, but doggone it, it’s like we’re in tornado alley right now,” Hofeld said.
ComEd’s Smith agreed it has been a rough storm season, with the Chicago region seeing 20 severe weather events so far this year.
“If the weather would cooperate for a few days,” that would be fantastic. “But again, this is what we do.”
Illinois has set a record for tornadoes in a year, and is approaching 200, the National Weather Service told the Tribune. Experts say this pace is not normal: Illinois experienced an average of 54 tornadoes annually between 1990 and 2020.
Illinois recorded 121 tornadoes in 2023, followed by 142 in 2024 and 126 last year, according to federal data. Before this stretch, the state only had four years on record with more than 100 tornadoes. The last time it saw triple-digit tallies was 2006.
Orland Park Mayor Jim Dodge said the village purchased additional equipment, including message boards for road closures and light towers to use during power outages at busy intersections, to be better prepared for severe weather events. He also said the village’s Emergency Management Agency is working on a messaging system to provide updates to residents.
“We’re going to kind of have an internal debriefing on … these two events, with an eye toward, can you get better at your response?” Dodge said. “Nothing’s perfect, and what else do we need to think about? Because clearly, the weather patterns have changed.”
Trains will run this weekend on Metra’s Rock Island Line, though. Metra announced Thursday storms delayed this weekend’s planned closure of the line, which travels between LaSalle Street in Chicago and Jefferson Street in Joliet, for construction of the new Auburn Park Station at 79th Street in Chicago.
As the project continues, service along the line will halt during other weekends that have not been announced.
The line, including stops in Blue Island, Robbins, Midlothian, Oak Forest, Tinley Park, Mokena, New Lenox and others, will be closed from Aug. 28 through Aug. 30, Metra said in a news release.