Since Saturday's storms knocked out power to homes and businesses throughout the area more than 223,000 ComEd customers have had power restored, but those in areas hardest hit by the storm may have to wait until Tuesday before their lights come back on.
As of 7 p.m. Sunday, approximately 17,000 customers remained without power after strong thunderstorms passed through the Chicago area Saturday evening, utility spokeswoman Martha Swaney said.
Of those without power, 11,000 were in ComEd's south region; 5,000 were in the Chicago region, which includes the city and near-west suburbs; 2,000 were in the utility's west region, which includes areas west of Route 59; and about 15 were in the north region, which includes Evanston and other northern suburbs, Swaney said.
More than 330 crews have been working to restore power to customers, most of whom will have electricity again by Monday night, ComEd spokesman Tony Hernandez said. But outages in the hardest-hit areas such as Oak Lawn, Lansing and Evergreen Park could linger into Tuesday because of the extent of the damage, he said.
You can see a complete list of storm damage reports from the National Weather Service here.
COMED POWER OUTAGE MAP>>>
The thunderstorm squall line raced into western Illinois from Iowa around 1 p.m. and moved into the Chicago area between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. The ground speed of these thunderstorms reached 55 mph which allowed these storms to cover a lot of real estate in a short period of time.
Storms reports ranged from 80 mph winds down at the amphitheater in Tinley Park to over 3.00" of rain in Grundy county. Even a funnel cloud was reported on the south side of Chicago, but fortunately it did not touch the ground.
The storm tore up trees and dropped three inches of rain in some places. The roof was ripped off a retirement home in Aurora, but no one was injured. A trucker in Morris who was asleep in his cab woke up to find his truck being tossed sideways.
The storm left much cooler air in its wake, with temperatures dropping 20 degrees in some places.
The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.
