Wilmette Likes ComEd's Plan For Storm Outages

Remember last summer? The power outages, homes flooding because sump pumps lost power, and food spoiling in refrigerators?

And no one knew when the power was going to come back on?

ComEd announced a plan Wednesday to better work with suburban governments when widespread outages occur. 

ABC7 reported ComEd plans to set up 17 joint operations centers, or temporary offices, in order to better keep information flowing to municipalities in the event of storms and outages. 

"After last summer’s severe storms brought widespread devastation and prolonged power outages to our communities, it was clear that we needed a better system to work with ComEd to ensure the timely restoration of critical facilities during a crisis situation," said Wilmette Village President Christopher S. Canning in a statement published by ComEd.

The joint operations centers will be set up within hours of a storm knocking out power to significant numbers of residents. They will be triggered when more than 20 percent of customers in an area are without power for three hours or more, according to the Chicago Tribune. 

"We see the JOC process as adding great value to the power restoration process," said Canning, who also serves as president of the Northwest Municipal Conference. "For the first time, municipal representatives will have a streamlined system for working side by side with ComEd to get our communities up and running. As a municipal leader, I applaud ComEd for partnering with our communities to develop this important initiative.” 

ComEd also plans to let customers report outages, and receive responses, via smartphone apps and texting. It has also developed a $1 million mobile command center, which it said can be deployed to hard-hit areas during outages.

What do you think of ComEd's plan? Tell us in the comments section.