A worker at Vail Street Market Jewel tosses the last of a crate full of Edy’s Ice Cream tubs into a large dumpster at the side of the store Saturday morning. The dumpster was filled with perishables lost due to the power outage in downtown Arlington Heights.
UPDATE: Downtown Arlington Heights power was restored early Saturday evening.
The majority of downtown Arlington Heights south of Northwest Highway is without electric power since Thursday evening about 4:00 p.m. CDT as a result of the severe storms that hit the area.
The Vail Street Market Jewel opened at about 11:00 a.m. Saturday morning with the help of a semi-trailer generator that is powering the store. After getting their own power source online on one side of the store and throwing out perishable food items in a large dumpster on the other side of the store, Jewel is back in business at 122 North Vail Avenue. Extra hands tossed a load of perishables, including ice cream and produce into a large dumpster outside the back of the store.
Jewel brought in a semi-trailer generator from Forces, Inc. of Naperville to power the Vail Street Market Jewel grocery store at 122 North Vail Avenue in Arlington Heights.
Those businesses that are still without power include Ashby’s Sterling Ice Cream, Athletico, Arlington Theaters, California Pizza Kitchen, Dunton House, Harry’s of Arlington, Armand’s, Peggy Kinnanes, Fuego, The Riv, La Tasca, Panera Bread, Alt Thai, Starbucks, Francesca’s Tavola, Wild Fish Sushi, Noodles, Regina’s Ristorante and Salon 117. All of these restaurants and businesses have been closed since Thursday night. The only bright side to the story is that the timing of the closure of the Campbell and Dunton intersection occurred during this power outage. Workers are working on this intersection even on Saturday.
All lights along Northwest Highway in downtown Arlington Heights are dark. Stoplights at Euclid and Arlington Heights road are lit up again, but the Dunton Avenue intersection is still dark. Dryden and Kensington and the Dryden Place Apartments have got power again. ComEd at one point on Thursday was estimating that some customers would not have power for at least 72 hours.
Over 600,000 people lost power in storms Thursday. ComEd restored power to about 550,000 customers by early Saturday morning. Of the remaining people who are still without power, 21,000 are in the city of Chicago, 82,000 are in the north and northwest suburbs, 16,000 in the south suburbs, and 300 in the west suburbs.