No Power, No Problem -- Residents Plug-in To Lake Forest, Lake Bluff Businesses

The loss of power for and residents meant a gain for local coffee shops and businesses that did have power, offered an electrical outlet and a place to still get some work done.

, a cuisine café, drew triple the regular business guest volume, according to manager Anne Jacobs.

“We had a lot of little, impromptu business meetings here, as far as everyone with the computers,” Jacobs said.

As for the storm’s wrath on the area, she said, “we didn’t have a lot of affect here,” noting that they had power, but Wisma’s Libertyville had no electricity until later in the day.

“We’ve been busy all day because a lot of people couldn’t cook and were running around, and they just wanted to relax,” Jacobs said. “We had a lot of families come in, and even one woman who said she had a tree fall on her house. She had a glass of wine.”

Daniela Resendiz, of Vernon Hills, works for Grace Elizabeth Groner Foundation at Lake Forest College, and was powerless at work.

“I would normally go down the block to Starbuck’s and get tea there, but today it was closed. There was no power, so we drove around and finally found Wisma,” she said while editing scholarship grants with a colleague.  “It’s pretty, it’s nicely decorated and I like it.”

It was Resendiz’s first time at Wisma, and she said she would be back.

West on Route 176 at the , Erik Lekberg of south Lake Forest in Whispering Oaks, had no power at home. He headed downtown for work in the morning, and came home and then straight to Starbuck’s in order to work at home, so to speak.

“The reception’s good. The Internet’s good. Got coffee,” Lekberg said.

When will the power be back on at home? “Hopefully in the next couple of days, and if not, I’m throwing everything out of the fridge,” he said.

Just to the south in Highland Park, local businesses were experiencing the same surge in customers.

“We were searching for a place we could not only have wifi but actually plug in because our power’s out at home and figured we’ll be gone for a long time,” said Brooke Voss, a mother who is also a fundraiser for The Cradle Adoption Agency.

“We have a downed power line in our backyard and pretty much don’t have an idea when ComEd’s going to get there,” added Voss, who camped out at Highland Park’s Corner Bakery with her son, who was there to surf the ‘Net, check in on Facebook and read online comics.

Typically, Voss works from home and loves it. Matt is a student at Monmouth (Ill.) College, and home for the summer. Wednesday, though, they were just happy to have somewhere to sit inside from the rain and online.

Just a few doors down at Highland Park’s Port Clinton Square Starbuck’s, Daniel Crowley, of Glencoe, crisscrosses the country running quality management programs for Delta Dental, but happened to be home this week. When his family received an alert that Glencoe homes would be without power, he predicted that his local haunts – the downtown Glencoe coffee shops – would be in the same predicament. He headed north, in search of wifi.

“When you need a change of scenery, this is the place to come,” said Crowley, whose main office is in San Francisco and has an office at his home, too.

Kevin Sprague, a master’s student at Trinity University in Bannockburn, works part-time at that Starbuck’s, but this morning he was without power at school and home, and came to an all-too-familiar place to study, for which he needed to be online. He shared a table with one of his morning regulars, Hunter Koopman, who runs Koopman Construction and lives on the south end of Ft. Sheridan. He, too, was without power.

By mid-afternoon, Koopman had already been there for six hours, plugged in with the laptop, headset and smart phone – charging from the wall socket, and with a newspaper, to boot.

“I come here every day, but I usually don’t stay,” he said. “I get my coffee and leave, but today, well, they’ve got electricity. You don’t realize how dependent you are on electricity 'til you lose it.”