Got Power? Many Left In The Dark

Power outages hit nearly half the town of Grayslake Monday morning as a strong storm knocked down power lines.

"We are on generator power here at the police station," said Cmdr. Matt McCutcheon of the .

He said the power is out in some spots, but fine in others.

"The traffic lights at Lake Street and Route 83 are working but the strip mall just to the south of Culvers doesn't have power," McCutcheon said. "Basically, everything south of that point doesn't have power."

The worst problem with power outages is that it renders traffic lights useless.

"We have had our guys unfold the stop signs at those intersections, but they get backed up very quickly," McCutcheon said. "There have been five traffic accidents so far, and four of those were at intersections where the lights were out."

Two of those accidents occurred at Route 83 and Washington Street; one at Lake Street and Washington Street; one at Atkinson and Washington Street; and one unrelated to traffic light problems at Route 120 and Belle Court.

"There were only minor injuries from the accidents and no one was transported," said McCutcheon. "Rescue came out and treated some people on scene."

Public works crews are currently out cleaning up the downed tree limbs.

The area that got hit the hardest was the area behind Grayslake Central High School," McCutcheon said. "A lot of tree limbs were down. Also up and down Lake Street."

ComEd crews are out throughout the entire region to deal with the powerful storm.

"It hit really fast," McCutcheon said, "and then it was over."