About 450 homes and businesses in north Evanston were expected to regain natural gas overnight after an outage left 1,200 customers without heat during the most frigid weekend so far this winter.
Nicor said it would begin to restore service to the first homes and businesses late Sunday — though more than 750 customers faced a third night of cold weather indoors as temperatures outside lingered well below freezing. The company was not sure when the remaining buildings’ gas would be restored.
Residents moved to hotels, stayed with friends or family, or relied on space heaters, blankets and fireplaces to provide warmth over the weekend. Restaurants that depend on gas-powered ovens lost all of their business.
Gas was turned off for all Nicor customers in the area — more than 30 blocks surrounding Central Street and Green Bay Road — after a water main broke in Wilmette on Friday morning and flooded the natural gas delivery system. Some Wilmette customers also were affected.
“This is much more difficult than what we originally anticipated,” said Kris Lathan, a Nicor media representative.
Nicor technicians and Evanston police turned off every gas switch manually on Friday and Saturday. At the same time, workers began around-the-clock shifts to repair the system.
When gas was reintroduced, it still would not flow, Lathan said. Water had caused the gas main to deteriorate.
Lathan said the outage was one of the worst in Nicor’s 50-year history due to the number of affected customers and the severely cold weather. Temperatures dropped into the single digits overnight Saturday and are expected to stay below freezing for several days.
Two nursing homes, Manor Care in Wilmette and the Swedish Retirement Home in Evanston, experienced a brief loss of heat on Friday but were restored quickly.
Jeff Shepard, his wife and their three children bundled up next to a space heater in the living room of their home on the 1900 block of Grant Street throughout the weekend.
Shepard had his laptop with him Sunday and tried to obtain information about the shortage from the city’s Web site — which had not been updated since an announcement of the outage was posted Friday.
“They said it would be restored later that night,” Shepard said. “I don’t see why somebody couldn’t go on pumping out updates.”
A nearby resident, Blair Trueblood, said she was glad that it wasn’t difficult to reach someone at Nicor for information. Nicor’s information line is 1-888-NICOR4U (888-642-6748).
Evanston and Wilmette both opened heating shelters. According to Lathan, only one person took advantage of the Evanston shelter at the Chandler Newberger Center, 1028 Central St.
Far more residents stayed in hotel rooms throughout the city, for which Nicor told customers it will reimburse the costs, Lathan said.
Mohammed Nabil, front desk clerk at Best Western, 1501 Sherman Ave., said 80 of the hotel’s 159 rooms were filled by residents fleeing cold homes.
The Hilton Garden Inn, 1818 Maple Ave., went from 30 percent of capacity to full over the weekend, said Joe Meizin, the manager on duty Sunday.
Meizin said he did not know when the displaced residents would leave.
“Last night they said they’d be gone today, ” he said. “Today they said they’d be gone tomorrow.”
Local businesses that rely on heat have also had a difficult time this weekend.
Ed Sevilla, general manager of Cafe Luciano’s, 2676 Green Bay Road, said he had done no business since the outage began. Sevilla said he normally serves 130 to 150 customers a day on weekends.
“I couldn’t begin to calculate the losses,” Sevilla said. “Three days in the restaurant business is a really big deal.”
