ComEd Restores Service to Virtually All Customers Affected by Monday's Powerful Storms

CHICAGO, Nov. 23, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- ComEd has restored service to virtually all 63,000 customers affected by two waves of thunderstorms that moved through northern Illinois on Monday.

ComEd has restored power to all but about 400 customers affected by the tornado that touched down near the Winnebago and Boone County line.  These outages are primarily in Caledonia and rural Boone County and involve extensive damage to the electrical system. Repairs are being coordinated with public safety officials and other utilities. ComEd has mobilized an incident command center in Rockford and crews are actively working to repair equipment and restore power as quickly and safely as possible.  

Initially, more than 40,000 customers lost power when a tornado toppled 10 high-voltage steel transmission towers and numerous wooden pole structures.  This damage impacted the power source to four large substations serving Loves Park, Machesney Park, Roscoe and Rockford.  ComEd was able to reroute power from other electric lines and expedite restoration of service for most of the affected customers within two hours.  

Due to downed transmission lines, Harlem Road and Aberdeen Road between Paulson Road and the Winnebago/Boone County line will be closed Tuesday while these lines are being removed.  The work on these lines requires special equipment and could not be done safely until daylight hours.  

Anyone who may have a power outage that has not been called in to ComEd should report it by calling 1-800-Edison-1.

"About 92 percent of customers affected by the tornado were restored within two hours after the outages occurred," said Anne Pramaggiore, ComEd president and COO. "There are only a few remaining customers without power and our crews will continue restoration efforts until the last customer is restored."

The thunderstorms included multiple lightning strikes, high winds and heavy rains, which caused damage across ComEd's service territory. More than 240 field crews worked to restore power and repair downed power lines, broken poles and other electrical equipment damaged in the storms.

Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd) is a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation (NYSE: EXC), one of the nation's largest electric utilities with approximately 5.4 million customers. ComEd provides service to approximately 3.8 million customers across Northern Illinois, or 70 percent of the state's population.

SOURCE ComEd

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