Tens of Thousands Without Power in Chicago Area

CHICAGO, IL — Tens of thousands of Chicago area residents are without power after a powerful storm ripped through Sunday afternoon. The ComEd power outage map showed power outages throughout the Chicago suburbs, with over 14,000 homes and businesses in the dark in Cook County as of 4 p.m. Nearly 9,000 were without power in Kane County; 7,285 were without power in Lake County and over 10,000 were also without power in McHenry County.

About 6,000 people were without power in Joliet, according to ComEd, along with over 1,100 in Aurora.

ComEd spokesperson John Schoen told the Daily Herald ComEd had been preparing for the storms to hit all weekend and had staff ready to deal with the outages. He said 82,000 customers lost power across the service region.

Local officials were also responding to reports of downed power lines and trees across the area. The Algonquin Township Highway Department reported there was a tree down on Crystal Lake Road and South Kilkenny Drive at about 2 p.m. Sunday and crews were working to remove the tree from the roadway, according to the highway department's Facebook page.

Officials with the McHenry Township Fire Protection District reported several power lines down across the area.

"Due to the large number of power lines down, it may take ComEd several days to address them all," officials wrote on the fire protection district's Facebook page. "Please stay away from any downed wires. Treat any downed wire as a live wire."