A severe storm Monday brought heavy rain and high winds to the southwest suburbs, leaving about 400 homes in Countryside without power into Thursday and flooding basements in several villages.
ComEd said the vast majority of remaining customers would be restored by the end of Thursday. The utility reported that more than 530,000 customers were affected across northern Illinois and that power had been restored to approximately 500,000 by Wednesday. ComEd dispatched more than 3,400 crew members to rebuild the grid.
Willow Springs reported an 18-hour wait for ComEd to respond to a live downed wire near Lyons Park. Summit’s municipal office building closed after losing power Monday; other village buildings ran on generators.
No injuries or tornadoes were reported in the southwest suburbs coverage area.
Flooding struck the same chronic trouble spots. In Summit, Mayor Sergio Rodriguez listed them: 63rd and Archer, near Shiloh Church, St. Joe’s, Legion Park, and St. Blase. Water entered basements across the village.
“When the rain is so heavy, it gets into basements,” Rodriguez said. “To change the sewers, we’ve seen estimates at over 50 million dollars.”
The flooding receded quickly in most places. Hodgkins and Stickney both saw street flooding drain within hours. In Forest View, sidewalk flooding on the 4600 block of Maple cleared fast—aided, Mayor David Liska said, by tree trimming done years earlier.
Fallen trees and limbs scattered across the region. Countryside’s First and Third Wards took the heaviest hit. Flagg Creek Golf Course lost five mature trees but reopened Tuesday. Stickney lost a tree that narrowly missed the Music in the Park pavilion and had two vehicles damaged; crews finished cleanup in two days.
Unincorporated Lyons Township faces a longer recovery. Highway Supervisor Terrance Carr said cleanup will take two weeks of overtime and weekends—on top of work still underway from the Fourth of July storm.
“We actually just cleaned up from the Fourth of July storm,” Carr said. “It will take us two weeks working overtime and weekends to clean up after this storm.”
Justice Mayor Kris Wasowicz noted the storm was the third significant one in recent weeks. “We have had our share lately,” he said.
Talerico Bakery’s 63rd Street plant and retail store in Summit lost power Monday through Wednesday night. The company’s frozen plant on 60th Street had power, allowing emergency production to continue for wholesale customers. The retail store reopened Thursday.