Lake Zurich Fire Chief Advises Call ComEd for Power Outages

Lake Zurich Fire Chief David Wheelock said residents need to call ComEd in the event of a power outage. Residents should not call 911 in the event of an outage. 

Wheelock explained, at the Monday village board meeting, that the only way ComEd knows power is out is by customers reporting the outage. He said if only one person reports an outage, from ComEd’s perspective only one house is out of power. The system doesn’t recognize a large scale outage until it gets more reports. 

Wheelock said ComEd has doubled its capacity for phone lines and is offering a new program in which people can report an outage via text message. 

Subscribers to ComEd’s Outage Alerts program can simply text the word “OUT” to 26633 (COMED) to report an outage at the location ComEd has associated with their cell phone number and they receive regular updates on the status of their outage until service is restored. Non-subscribers who text “OUT” to 26633 will be invited to subscribe to the Outage Alerts program, according to a ComEd news release. New subscribers will receive a confirmation text-message that they successfully subscribed, and will immediately be enrolled to receive notifications on their cell phones or pagers when an outage has been reported at their address. For more information go to the ComEd website.