Many Residents Remain Without Power Following Tuesday Night's Storm

Between 3,000 and 10,000 customers in the ComEd's Joliet region—which includes Channahon, Minooka and Shorewood, along with Romeoville—are without power Wednesday, according to the electric service provider's website.

“It was a pretty bad storm that rolled through last night,” ComEd spokesman Tony Hernandez said Wednesday morning.

He said the National Weather Service reported 13,000 lightning strikes, many of which ultimately hit equipment or trees that then fell on power lines, knocking out electricity to customers.

By 9 a.m., Hernandez said 20,300 customers in ComEd's coverage area remained without power, with about 2,000 of those in the Joliet region.

The National Weather Service reported winds in the area as high as 64 mph, which was a gust recorded two miles outside of Coal City. Although residents there thought they were seeing damage from a microburst, Meterologist Ben Deubelbeiss said it was not that kind of a storm.

"It was probably a bow echo," he said. "You can get hurricane force winds with bow echo."

Areas in Cook County saw recorded wind gusts of as much as 72 mph.

As far as lightning strikes go, Deubelbeiss said the Chicago metro area had about 20,000 cloud-to-ground strikes in a two-hour period.

"We don't really keep any climate records as to normal lightning amounts, but there was a lot of lightning last night," he said. "The storm did seem to peak as far as lightning activity, right over the Chicago area."