Hundreds of thousands still without power after strong storm slams Chicago area

ELMHURST - It's been nearly 30 hours since a storm slammed the Chicago area on Monday with winds reaching 90 miles an hour, and spawning a small tornado in Rogers Park.

As of Tuesday night, ComEd says 267,000 customers remain without power, many of whom are in the western suburbs and south of I-88, and it could be days before power is fully restored.

"Oh my God! What do we do? It's crazy. We're in the middle of a pandemic,” said Elmhurst resident Danielle Faul.

Virtually every business in Elmhurst was closed Tuesday -- one day after poweful wind gusts barreled through the Chicago area, knocking down trees and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of ComEd customers, for potentially several days.

"Ok I'm going to go have to stay with my mom or my daughter for sure, which is a big inconvenience,” said Elmhurst resident Lisa Fitzmaurice.

ComEd says crews are working around the clock, repairing a major carrier line in Lombard. But with so much damage over such a wide area, it's going to take some time.

The Castillo family in Lombard stayed cool sitting outside ehile worrying about the hundreds of dollars of food getting warm in their fridge.

"Right now we're looking for a generator just to keep everything good, you know? And we have stuff in the freezer too. It's gonna melt,” said Javier Castillo.

Those generators are now almost impossible to come by. which is why they're scrambling at the Egg Harbor Café.

"I've just spent the last five hours putting ice on everything. Waiting for an update. And to see if we'll have to load everything up and move it to a different location so I can save it,” said manager Allison Huber.

The power outage also caused traffic headaches, as police are assigned to major intersections throughout the western suburbs to waive traffic through by hand.