CHICAGO, Aug. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- In less than 48 hours after the last of
the destructive Monday and Tuesday storms left the ComEd service territory,
ComEd has been able to restore to service more than 99 percent of the 556,000
customers affected. The remaining 2,000 affected customers will be restored
today, within approximately three days of the start of the storm.
The restoration effort has been one of ComEd's fastest and safest
major-storm response efforts. The recovery effort has been even quicker than
ComEd's award-winning recovery effort last year when 634,000 customers'
services were restored within five days after a series of storms on Aug. 23
and 24. For that storm response, the Edison Electric Institute honored ComEd
with the association's "Emergency Recovery Award" for outstanding efforts to
restore power.
During this week's storm, ComEd crews restored a half million customers in
approximately 36 hours, which improved on the August 2007 effort by several
hours.
"Our crews have performed exceptionally well, and many customers
personally expressed their thanks to our frontline personnel," said ComEd
Chairman and CEO Frank M. Clark. "Of course, we recognize that quickly
restoring customers to service is one of our core responsibilities, but it has
been impressive how deeply that commitment runs among our employees during the
most challenging circumstances."
ComEd expects to have all remaining customers restored by midnight
tonight. ComEd continues to have more than 700 crews working 16-hour shifts to
restore affected customers. This includes 141 out-of-state crews from Kansas,
Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Damage from the storms was severe and widespread. This included
approximately 200 damaged utility poles, more than 150 damaged transformers,
and the replacement of more than 30 miles of electric wire. There also were
approximately 88,000 lightning strokes recorded throughout ComEd's northern
Illinois service territory. Some areas reported winds as high as 70 to 90
miles per hour, and the National Weather Service confirmed the touchdown of
two tornados Monday evening in Bloomingdale and Bolingbrook.
The cost of restoration efforts for this week's storm is estimated to be
$15 to $20 million. This year has been one of ComEd's most active years for
large storms. For example, between May 30 and June 30, seven devastating
storms affected more than 671,000 customers and cost approximately
$53 million.
Customers remaining without service should report their outage to
800-EDISON-1. Spanish-speaking customers can call 1-800-95-LUCES
(1-800-955-8237).
Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd) is a unit of Chicago-based Exelon
Corporation (NYSE: EXC), one of the nation's largest electric utilities with
approximately 5.2 million customers. ComEd provides service to approximately
3.8 million customers across Northern Illinois, or 70 percent of the state's
population.
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