Utility’s Outages Spark Outrage in Chicago

What happens when you flip the light switch? In Chicago these days, you can’t be too sure.

Dozens of blackouts large and small this summer have outraged residents and businesses, nearly spoiled frozen plant and animal tissue at the distinguished Field Museum of Natural History and made Commonwealth Edison a target for politicians and consumer groups.

“I was actually giving them the benefit of the doubt till the last week or so when everything went out downtown. Then I totally lost faith,” said Natalie Smith, co-owner of Langtree Salon on the North Side.

ComEd, which serves about 3.4 million customers in northern Illinois, has acknowledged the problems, apologized and said it will spend about $3 billion to improve its system, including replacing or upgrading aging equipment and perhaps even building a substation on the North Side.

The utility said some of the power failures may have been caused by Bakelite, an early “wonder plastic” that was used to seal joints in ComEd’s underground cables in the 1950s. Some of the Bakelite has become porous, allowing moisture in and causing short circuits, ComEd officials said.

“Everyone recognizes the system stinks. The company has to completely rebuild its infrastructure,” said William Abolt, Chicago’s environment commissioner.

ComEd spokesman Keith Bromery called that statement an “over-characterization” but conceded, “Basically, we know that we have a reliability problem.”

In fact, ComEd’s problems have been so chronic that a University of Michigan customer-satisfaction survey of the nation’s 21 largest electric companies has put the utility at or near the bottom every year since 1994.

This summer’s troubles started July 30 with a blackout that left a large slice of Chicago--about 100,000 customers--without power on the hottest day of the year, when the mercury hit 104. The utility blamed high demand for electricity because of the extreme heat.

Problems at a substation on Aug. 12 forced ComEd to shut off power to part of the Loop, Chicago’s busiest business district. That led to the forced resignation of the utility’s vice president for transmission and distribution.

Another mechanical problem caused a blackout Sunday that shuttered the Field Museum, imperiling its collection of DNA samples. A spokeswoman on Wednesday said the samples appeared to have been saved by staff members who kept them cold with dry ice.

Abolt said the problems are technically fixable but it is a matter of whether ComEd can make “a cultural change” within the organization and find the will to change itself.