Nine days after the storm that was to blame for it all, tens of thousands of people yet again woke up without power in Northwest Indiana on Thursday. As of Thursday morning, a total of 63,500 NIPSCO customers were without power in the Northwest Indiana region, and in Gary, NIPSCO said the power won’t be back on until next week.
Things came to a boiling point for some people in Gary in the last 24 hours after NIPSCO released estimated power restoration times for different areas across Northwest Indiana, but initially left Gary off the list. The latest update on the NIPSCO website as of Thursday morning indicated Gary was set to get power back on Tuesday — 10 days after the August 11 storms first knocked it out.
Residents were frustrated after already having been without power for more than a week.
“That’s ridiculous. It’s unacceptable. They need to do better,” said Bridget Sanders. “We are being left behind every time something goes on. Gary is left behind. We are the last ones on the totem pole to get anything done.”
Utility crews have been working around the clock to repair the nearly 300 power poles left damaged in recent storms. All the debris and downed trees are making repairs a really big challenge, with some saying Thursday morning they would be surprised if they had power by next week given how bad some of the damage is.
The Aetna neighborhood of Gary was one of the hardest-hit areas. In addition to power being out, there was still a lot of debris lining the streets, and some massive trees were still down. Crews have not been able to address those issues, as the priority was power.
Cynthia Hunter of Gary has been without power for 10 days. She said she was feeling “exhausted.”
“I feel that we have just like learned to adapt to it. Like, I don’t know. We’re trying to maintain, but it’s not easy. We have every window in our house open, you know, trying to maintain safety as well,” said Hunter. “As far as charging phones or anything else electronic, we take it to the car and charge it. We spent the night in the car, the truck, a couple of nights just for air. It’s hard, guys. It’s really, really hard.”
Running low on food, clean clothes, and patience
Beyond the physical discomfort, residents say they’re now also running out of food, clean clothes and patience as the outage stretches on. An open lot behind the Family Life Community Center was transformed into a makeshift pantry this week, with dozens of people lining up for shelf-stable food to help get them through the weekend as their own kitchen stockpiles run thin.
Tolanda Jordan walked through the line looking for easy options to feed her kids, saying she was looking for “can goods or rice or cereal. Things that don’t really take too much cooking.” Jordan said her family has gotten its power back, but with a tree having fallen on her car, she has no way to reach stores outside walking distance — and the grocery stores within walking distance are closed. Other residents said they’ve run through their perishable goods, had food spoil, or are running low on their remaining shelf-stable options.
LaJuan Clemons, CEO of the Family Life Community Center and the Gary Food Collective, said the community’s food insecurity issues predate the storm. “We are used to this. This is nothing. This is regular. We do have a real issue with food insecurity in the community,” Clemons said. He added that organizers had anticipated the need and were prepared to respond: “Everything was in place. This is not like we just were running to get it. We were ready.”
For others, the outage has meant a new kind of hardship. Tasha Harris, who lives in neighboring Griffith and still has no power at home, said she’s been forced to dip into food she intended to share with family. “We gotta go back-and-forth and get ice. Fill it with a cooler. Going back-and-forth to get something to eat the rest… It’s too much. But we’re still here so we’re blessed,” Harris said.
Clemons said he is working on organizing more food distribution events in the coming days, since NIPSCO’s most recent estimates have the last outages in the area not being restored until Tuesday.
Food, schools, and businesses
Meanwhile, food critic and popular social media personality Keith Lee said he is coming to Gary this weekend as part of his Midwest food tour. He posted on social media about the power situation, saying he hopes to help deliver meals or supplies to people in need.
Several restaurants along Broadway in Gary have been able to reopen this week, with others hoping to reopen by later Thursday or Friday.
Public schools in Gary will remain closed through this week. Officials from the Gary Community School Corporation said they will have a better sense of a return date over the weekend. Meantime, they are beginning repairs and preparing for when students can return.
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