Four Days After Re-Hooking Power During Storm, Man Burns Down Home With Generator

On Friday, police responded to a home on the 6300 block of Honey Lane for calls about a resident who shinnied up a utility pole during Tuesday’s storm to reconnect the shut-off power.

On Saturday, police and firefighters were back at the home after a gas generator the same man had hooked up to the electrical panel burnt the house down.

ComEd had shut off the power to the home at 10 a.m. April 19 due to a $3,000 unpaid bill, the agency told police. That night, ComEd received a call from an anonymous neighbor who told police she saw the tenant on the utility pole in the middle of that night’s storm reconnecting the electricity using a jumper cable.

Police escorted ComEd onto the property to disconnect the power at about 4:30 p.m. April 22.

At 9:45 p.m. April 23, police and firefighters responded to the home, now fully engulfed in flame. The same tenant, whom the officer recognized from the call the day before, told police he had been running a gas generator in the garage to power the home’s electrical panel because the power had been shut off.

After the generator had been running for about 90 minutes, the tenant went to check on it and saw the garage was on fire. Attempts to put out the fire with an extinguisher and garden hose were unsuccessful. The Tinley Park Fire Department and surrounding fire departments were able to put out the blaze, but not before the home was declared uninhabitable.

Police could not immediately be reached regarding possible future charges. ComEd is compiling information for a civil case against the tenant, police reports state.