This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Politics & Government

ComEd Addresses Power Outages with Upset Residents

Power officials, residents meet over frequent outages and brownouts.

A recent power outage cost Glen Ellyn resident Gretchen Rehm $300 after her washing machine burned out.

Upset over these frequent outages, Rehm joined 13 other residents at a Tuesday night meeting to speak with representatives of ComEd. 

Rehm filed a claim with ComEd for her washing machine, after a repairman told her a transformer caught fire, which she thinks could be the cause for her damaged appliance and broken circuits.

Find out what's happening in Glen Ellynwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

But Rehm said ComEd responded with a form letter that blamed the outage on a tree branch. And because it was a tree branch, ComEd is not liable for it.

“I was really disappointed that this was just cranked out by someone who didn’t even look at it,” Rehm said Tuesday night. A response she said is unsatisfactory.

Find out what's happening in Glen Ellynwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The meeting addressed the power outages and brownouts that have occurred in the northeastern part of Glen Ellyn. But it's still unclear why this region of Glen Ellyn sees more outages as compared to the rest of the village. And according to resident Ken Trantowski, outages have occurred with great frequency over the past five years. 

“Some residents in the impacted section have lived in this area of Glen Ellyn for almost 40 years and others for just over a year,” Trantowski said. “The long-time residents know that continuing power outages and brownouts are not normal. At least, they have not been normal until the past five years.”

Trantowski said he and the other residents understood that there were some things outside of ComEd’s control, like weather and peak demand periods.

“What we don’t accept, is our power failing or brownouts in middle of morning, afternoon or evening on a normal weather day during every season of the year,” Trantowski said. “Over a five-year period, it seemed that the failures increased over the previous years.

Speaking for all of the other residents, Trantowski wanted answers from ComEd, who have “not been reliable and terribly responsive to us.”

John O’Halloran, ComEd external affairs manager, said he understands and sympathizes with the residents and this unfortunate situation. Flanked by fellow External Affairs Manager Jeffrey Hettrick and ComEd Reliability Engineer Jeff Dominick, O’Halloran presented all the different ways ComEd reviews the power lines.

One way ComEd reviews the power lines is by tree trimming. Every two years, ComEd trims all of the trees along the main line. Every four years, the trees along all the other lines are trimmed. One proposed solution for the northeast section’s problem is to do more frequent tree trimming in the area.

Another solution was to install additional fusing later this year. Dominick said fusing and sectionalizing are done so that outages are isolated in terms of scope.

“We try to sectionalize as much as possible so that 20 people lose service, rather than 1,000,” Dominick said

The crowd of Glen Ellyn residents did not react well to the news that tree trimming was the answer. A number of residents felt there were other things ComEd could do to fix the outage problem.

Dominick, however, said the outages in March were caused by tree branches. And the mechanical failures that caused earlier outages have been fixed.

This did not stop the crowd of residents from criticizing the group of ComEd officials – and from offering suggestions.

One Glen Ellyn resident asked why ComEd didn’t put the power lines underground when the village was tearing up the streets a number of years ago. Hettrick responded to this suggestion, saying that a number of counties do not want ComEd in the streets.

Dominick agreed that putting power lines underground would solve the tree issue, but if there was a problem with the line, it would take a lot more time to identify the problem because it cannot be readily seen.

The meeting was punctuated by several instances in which residents interrupted the ComEd officials. It ended early, however, when tornado sirens were activated because of Tuesday night’s storm.

The meeting’s participants were evacuated from the Glen Ellyn Civic Center’s Clayton Room to the ground floor. At this point, many of the residents ended up leaving the building, thus ending the meeting.

Leonard Cada, a 37-year resident, said he hoped the meeting would address the underlying problem of the outages, and see if anything has been done to correct the problem.

“The only way you get things done is through meetings like this,” Cada said.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?