THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2007
The 'Day From Hell'
By TODD WESSELL
Journal Editor
Des Plaines Police Chief Jim Prandini called Monday the "day from hell."
Extra police officers, detectives and members of the city's Emergency Management Agency (EMA) were forced to handle massive traffic jams throughout the day. An electrical utility pole located near Northwest Highway and Broadway Street caused the biggest headaches after it caught fire at about 1 p.m. But before that, police were bogged down directing traffic in the downtown area that had become clogged due to railroad gates that were stuck in the down position.
Office and store employees along a small stretch of Northwest Highway near the Cumberland Circle were evacuated early Monday afternoon after reports arrived about the electrical pole being ablaze. According to Chief Prandini, two police officers, driving cars in different directions spotted what looked like an explosion and fire in which the top part of a wooden pole snapped off. That caused high voltage electrical wires to fall to the ground some of which crossed Northwest Highway and the nearby Metra commuter railroad tracks. Because of the fallen wires and the fact that businesses in the immediate area had lost electrical power, the decision was made to evacuate nearby businesses. Some people went home, others were invited to spend time and keep warm in a Pace bus that had been called in by the fire department.
The outage and downed wires resulted in the closing of Northwest Highway west of Graceland Avenue. That tied up traffic throughout a large part of the area forcing the assignment of extra police officers and EMA personnel to direct traffic.
"We pulled every body out there," said Prandini. Rand Road was at a standstill. Northwest Highway was closed. Downtown traffic was re-routed down south to Graceland. Trains were stopped for 45 minutes to an hour. It was a very dangerous situation."
According to Commonwealth Edison spokesperson John Dewey, what appeared to be a transformer explosion was in reality electrical arching and a fire at the top of the pole. The arching, he said, was caused by salt contamination in connecting electrical equipment at the site.
"We didn't have a transformer explosion," said Dewey. "There may have been a flash followed by a fire."
Hours before the pole fire, police officers had already tackled a major traffic problem in the downtown area and along sections of the Canadian National Railroad tracks.
"Monday morning was a mess," said Prandini. "Railroad gates got stuck down. A lot of times when we have snow, it blocks the usage of gates going up. We see that off and on. They just stay down."
With the help of EMA, said Prandini, officers got through the morning rush hour and approximately two hours of exasperation. By 9 a.m. traffic was moving at a normal pace. But four hours later, new, bigger problems arose. No injuries were reported.
"Today, everything has been OK, so far," added Prandini referring to Tuesday morning. By 10 a.m., several inches of new snow had fallen and the wind was howling.