Probe into Downtown Chicago Blackout

C H I C A G O, Oct. 9, 2000 -- A massive downtown power outage caught

Commonwealth Edison by surprise, after a relatively uneventful year

in which the company could spend up to $1.9 billion upgrading its

system.

The utility was left searching for reasons why a new circuitbreaker — put in place specifically to head off major outages — caught fire and exploded Sunday, plunging 12,000 customers intodarkness.

“The equipment we installed should have isolated this outage,but it did not,” said Pam Strobel, a ComEd executive vicepresident. “There are new controls that should have preventedthis.”

The fact that the explosion is unrelated to widespread outagesin the summer of 1999 is of little comfort to state regulators.

“This may be a huge anomaly or freak event — we don’t knowthat,” Illinois Commerce Commission spokesman David Farrell said.“But a large, sophisticated urban utility builds in many kinds ofbackup, redundant systems to take care of anything that mightoccur.”

The ICC has been meeting with ComEd regularly since the 1999outages, which prompted Mayor Richard Daley to fly into a rage anda top ComEd official to resign.

“We are very deeply concerned because of the many, many, manyhours of meetings with the company and the commitment toreliability that was made public by the company — and made over andover again,” Farrell said. “As a significant, major city in theworld, one of the fundamentals of a sophisticated, modern city issafe, reliable power.”

City officials also voiced impatience as transportation andpolice departments once again declared an emergency and went intoaction.

William Abolt, the city’s environment commissioner who hasblasted the utility for past outages, said the city would againdemand answers.

“This really underscores the need for this company toaggressively complete the process of updating and transforming thecurrent system so that power outages like this don’t happen,” hesaid.

Unwelcome Reminder of 1999 OutagesFor those who lived through last year’s cascading power outages,the incident is a dour reminder that, in the nation’s third-largestcity, electricity is not something to be taken for granted.

Sunday’s outage blacked out more than seven square miles in andaround the downtown area.

The fire department responded to dozens of calls to free peopletrapped in elevators. Traffic signals failed, leaving leisurelySunday traffic snarled like rush hour before a three-day weekend.About 30 sailboats were trapped between drawbridges that had lostpower.

Shoppers and tourists in the Loop were startled to find majorretailers, restaurants, theaters and the city’s rail transportationservice shuttered for lack of power.

“You would think electrical power would be far from your mind,but it’s just not the case around here,” said JoAnne Hirsch ofSchaumburg. Hirsch and her husband Lou were diverted from theirinterstate exit as police closed the Loop to traffic.

The Hirsches, both in their 60s, walked the last nine blocks toa theater performance where they had tickets.

Tourists unfamiliar with the city found stores and restaurantsclosed and nowhere to go as winds picked up and temperaturesdropped on a blustery October day.

Sheila Branson and her three daughters from Midland, S.D.,sought shelter and food, with little luck.

“It’s cold and we’re hungry,” Branson said. “We don’t knowwhere to begin looking for somewhere that’s open. It’s anadventure.”