More than 60,000 people in Illinois without power day after ice storm
ST. CHARLES, Ill. (CBS) -- More than 60,000 people in Northern Illinois are still without power following Wednesday night's ice storm.
ComEd said they hope to get 80% of those customers back online by Thursday night, and the rest by Saturday. CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot was in St. Charles where people without electricity were doing their best to cope.
The storm that swept through the area left trees covered in ice, causing them to come crashing to the ground.
The Morgans were among the 110 ComEd customers in St. Charles still without power on Thursday afternoon. They were using six coolers where they have eggs, whipped cream, soda, cheeses and gallons of milk which used to be in their freezer. They're hoping the power comes back on soon, so they don't lose a lot of their food.
Pat Morgan and her husband Tom are relying on flashlights to get around inside their home.
Le Mignot: "How long have you been without power?"
Morgan: "Uh, it went out permanently about 5:30 last night."
The warmth from a crackling gas fireplace and a lantern are their only source of heat.
The couple live in the Wild Rose subdivision in St. Charles. Pat said the lights started flickering and then the power went out at the worst possible time Wednesday night.
"I was taking all the stuff out that I needed to make my pork ribs and some potatoes," she said. "It flickered again and it never came back on. We've had a lot of power outages here, but they've never lasted. I think we had one last summer, that lasted several hours only, but this is the longest. We've never been this long."
Pat said ComEd has told them they could get power back by Saturday, but then shortly after CBS 2 first aired this story at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, the Morgan's power finally came back on.
Jane Callahan had a big smile as she cooked in the warmth of her home. The loud sound of a generator has been music to her ears.
"I always offer anyone to charge anything that they need to," she said.
She just had a new generator installed about two months ago. It turned on when she lost power Wednesday afternoon.
"Around five o'clock, when I got home, the power was flickering on and off and I had the generator turn on and off, two or three times and then around 5:30, it was out," Callahan said.