The bell did not ring for students in the public school system in Gary, Indiana, on Wednesday morning.
Officials announced that schools in Gary Community School Corporation’s district would remain closed due to ongoing issues from the derecho last week.
As of Wednesday morning, NIPSCO had restored power to 282,000 customers across Northwest Indiana. But more than 83,000 buildings and homes remained in the dark.
More than 27,000 buildings in Gary alone have been without power for eight days.
At Citgo station in Gary, the gas pumps did not work. A generator kept at least some business alive, but to power it, the owner of the gas station said he had to buy fuel somewhere else.
Inside, ice cream was melting in the freezer, and several cans of soda and juice were warm.
The generator was only able to keep a floodlight on, the register running, and one refrigerator cool.
CBS News Chicago asked how much eight days without electricity was costing the gas station.
“As far as revenue, it’s in the tens of thousands,” said gas station owner Jasmeet Singh, “and then product — I want to I’ve thrown away about $5,000 to $7,000 worth of like dairy stuff — ice cream and stuff like that. Still have more that needs to be thrown away.”
Singh said the non-functional pumps are also costing his gas station $10,000 a day in revenue.
“I mean, we’re not some big corporation or some big company,” he said. “We’re just a small business, so it impacts a lot.”
Gary Mayor Eddie Melton said earlier this week that NIPSCO was still assessing damage there.
NIPSCO chief executive officer Vince Parisi had a more optimistic prediction about power restoration earlier this week. It did not pan out.
On Monday, Parisi said: “I feel really good about getting 90% of our customers by the end of tomorrow. We’re about 75, 80% today of those customers that were impacted by that original storm on 8/11.”
Just hours after that interview on Monday, a fire consumed NIPSCO equipment in East Chicago, plunging thousands of customers there into the dark and adding to NIPSCO’s workload.
Some people who lost power after the storm last week got it back, but then lost it again because of the fire.
Parisi also said in that earlier interview that most people should be restored by Friday. But then, Munster and Highland, Indiana, residents might be in the dark until Tuesday of next week — two weeks after the storm.
Given that, the first day of school remains to be announced in Munster.
Even children who have power in places like St. John are impacted, because they still are not back in the classroom. This is because of ongoing outages in other towns feeding the district, such as Dyer and Schererville.
Lake Central Schools said Wednesday that the lights were working in most buildings, but some fire alarm and air conditioning systems were on the fritz. The first day of school is now set to begin on Thursday, after originally being set to begin on Aug. 11.
The district applied to have the State of Indiana waive the six days that school had to be canceled, rather than have them made up at the end of the school year.
Meanwhile, there was a small, but important tweak in NIPSCO’s statewide updates between Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday, the power company noted it would be in “emergency response mode” until Friday of this week. This has now been extended to Friday of next week.
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