Power Hour: An Update on Outages

ComEd officials are urging local customers without power to hang in there. 

Across Chicagoland, 189,000 ComEd customers were still without power around 4 p.m. Wednesday, a spokeswoman said. About 34,000 of those accounts were from the near west suburbs. 

ComEd officials estimated service in the western suburbs will be 90-percent restored by midnight Thursday.

In an update to village officials, Oak Park public works director John Wielebnicki on Wednesday said "there is no specific area that was hit harder than the other. It is pretty widespread."

He said there were no reports of basement backups after the heavy rains and only "minor" street flooding. But the debris is a different story. 

Early estimates indicate 12 large trees and up to 25 smaller trees were heavily damaged and will require removal. Wielebnicki said residents are encouraged to bring brush from their yard to the curb for pickup — and to do it quickly. 

"Once village crews have cleaned a block of brush there will be no guarantees we could come back" and pick it up later, Wielebnicki said. 

In River Forest, public works director said the powerful storm "brought a good deal of tree damage as a result of their accompanying high winds." Public Works called in crews late last night (and they worked into this morning) to clear tree debris out of the streets and off driveway aprons."

That work is also expected to continue through the week.