A battered Chicago began straightening house Thursday, a day after hurricane-force winds toppled trees, damaged buildings and knocked out telephone and electric service for thousands of residents.
Most people weathered the cleanup and repairs better than they had expected, as winds returned to more normal Chicago gusts of 15 to 20 miles an hour, down more than 50 m.p.h. from the day before.
”We were lucky the weather gave us a break today,” said Terry LaPlante, a Commonwealth Edison spokesman. ”There weren`t the killer winds like yesterday.”
By 6 p.m. Thursday, only 450 of about 50,000 Edison customers without power Wednesday were still without service, LaPlante said. About 420 of the customers were scattered through the south suburbs and the South Side, he said.
Illinois Bell didn`t fare so well and still had about 14,000 customers without service, primarily on the North Side and Far South Side and south suburbs, said Dick Hill, a company spokesman.
”Those were caused mainly by trees falling down, taking other lines with them,” Hill said. ”Some water penetrated underground cables. We will continue to work through the weekend.”
Most of the city`s storm cleanup was finished by early Thursday, said Kirsten Svare, a spokeswoman for the city Department of Streets and Sanitation.
”In a few instances we were working on getting downed trees off houses and cars, but we did most of that yesterday,” Svare said Thursday. ”Today we`re picking up pieces of trees we cut up and sending street sweepers behind the forestry trucks.”
Another city crew on Wednesday night replaced a McCormick Place transformer damaged by a fallen brick wall. That transformer controlled street lights along Lake Shore Drive, Svare said.
Monroe Street between Franklin and Wells Streets was reopened by 7:30 a.m. Thursday, she said. Power had not been restored Thursday afternoon to traffic signals at 76th and Loomis Streets and at 59th and 60th Streets and Indiana Avenue, she said.
The sunny weather that hastened the cleanup Thursday is expected to continue through Saturday, with more Chicago-style gusts of 15 to 20 m.p.h, said Evert Schmidt, a meteorologist with Central Weather Service.
”Do you realize how often we get winds that high?” asked Schmidt, referring to Wednesday`s winds, which reached 75 m.p.h. ”You can pull your hair out of your head one by one before we`ll get another one like that.”
