Commonwealth Edison Co., under criticism for a recent rate increase and still smarting from barbs over major power outages last summer, is taking new heat after a felled power line delayed 20,000 Loop-bound commuters for up to two hours Tuesday.
A thunderstorm dropped the 12,000-volt cable across tracks of the Burlington Northern commuter line near 26th Street and Kostner Avenue at about 5:45 a.m. But an Edison repair crew did not arrive on the scene until about 7:15 a.m., and rail service was not restored until just after 8.
But a company spokesman said Edison twice received erroneous information about the location of the downed line from the railroad and from Metra, the commuter rail agency. That delayed repairs, he said.
Metra, meanwhile, questioned the timeliness of Edison`s response.
”I think everybody is trying hard not to assess blame on one party or the other, (but) there definitely was a breakdown in communications,” said Marla Karlin, a Metra spokeswoman.
Commuters were steamed at the inconvenience.
An angry Jim Boyle of Naperville said he left home early to get a head start on a heavy workload at his downtown office.
”I had a lot of things to do,” he said. ”I got nothing done.”
Boyle, 32, was on the lead car of one of the first trains to be stopped by the cable. He said that he opened the front door of the car at about 7 a.m. to point out the line to a Commonwealth Edison worker who had arrived in a truck.
”He said, `That`s not my side; it`s on the Chicago side. I`ll relay the message,` ” Boyle recounted. Then the man got in his truck and drove away, he said.
”I could have killed him,” Boyle said.
Edison`s repair force is divided into Chicago and suburban crews, and the Chicago site of the downed line is close to the city`s border with Cicero.
But rather than a jurisdictional consideration, it is possible that the worker was unqualified to handle the high-voltage line, said Mike Kelly, a company spokesman.
”If it was an Edison person, it could have been somebody who could not take care of the problem,” Kelly said.
Kelly said the company received a call from Metra at 5:57 a.m. reporting wires down at 1200 S. Cicero Ave. in Cicero. A crew was dispatched and found nothing, he said. The Burlington Northern called at 5:58 to report a location at 23rd Street and Kedzie Avenue, Kelly said. Again, no wires were found.
Calls with the correct location came in from both Metra and the railroad at about 6:50, Kelly said.
”There`s one other thing to keep in mind,” he said. ”Between 6 and 7, it was storming all over the place, and we got many other calls we were responding to at the same time.”
Karlin acknowledged the early mixup about the cable`s location, but said a Metra official who tried to call in the correct spot at about 6:25 a.m. couldn`t get through to the right person at Edison until 6:50.
And she questioned why it took Edison`s crew about 30 minutes to get to the scene after the call finally got through.
”We were perplexed,” she said. ”We couldn`t figure out why it took so long. I think everybody is still trying to figure out who was where and why.” People on Boyle`s train blamed the electric company.
”Everybody was happy about the (9 percent) rate increase that Edison is getting from us,” he said sarcastically. Passengers also passed along the joke that asks what`s beige and sleeps four. The answer, Boyle said: ”A Com Ed truck.”
