Ten Days Later, Tens of Thousands in Northwest Indiana Still Have No Power

Ten days after 99 mph winds tore through northwest Indiana, tens of thousands of people still don't have power. NIPSCO, the region's utility, told reporters Thursday that between 68,000 and 75,000 customers remained in the dark, depending on the hour, mostly in Lake County near the Illinois border, according to CNN and the Chicago Tribune.

The storm hit Aug. 11. It knocked out power initially to more than 300,000 NIPSCO customers, per CNN. The company says it has restored service to roughly 306,000 of them since. That leaves a stubborn remainder, concentrated in Gary, that isn't coming back quickly.

Gary won't see full restoration until Aug. 25, NIPSCO told CNN. The Chicago Tribune reported Portage is also targeting Tuesday, Munster is looking at Monday, and Hammond and Highland are expected back online Saturday. That's a two-week span for some residents, start to finish.

Why it's taking so long

Melody Birmingham, an executive at NIPSCO's parent company, said the damage isn't the kind of thing crews can patch overnight. She told a news conference, as reported by both CNN and the Chicago Tribune, that roughly 300 poles and 44 transmission poles need to be repaired or replaced in Gary alone. "These aren't simple repairs," Birmingham said. "These are systems that are being rebuilt. These are lines that ordinarily take us and systems that ordinarily take weeks or months that we are trying to accomplish in days and/or weeks."

Rebuilding transmission infrastructure isn't like replacing a fuse.

The human cost is stacking up

Residents describe genuine hardship. Alyssa Casalin, 19, of Portage, told the Chicago Tribune she's been caring for her 2-month-old son by flashlight, unable to properly store milk or see him clearly at night while changing diapers. Jeremy Spurrier, 51, told CNN he's spending about $75 a day on generator gas and driving to Illinois for ice to keep his insulin cold. "If I run out of ice, that's several hundred dollars of insulin just ruined," he said.

Kevin Mejia, who runs a community Facebook page in East Chicago, told The Independent that residents who got power back have lost it again. "A lot of people have been reaching out to me for food: 'Hey, I threw out hundreds of dollars in groceries.' Elderly people don't know who to turn to," he said.

Courtney Page-Tan, an Indiana University Indianapolis professor who studies community resilience, told The Independent that health risks compound with each passing day. Carbon monoxide poisoning from poorly ventilated generators, medical devices losing charge, and spoiled food all pose threats. "Nine days is a long time for a community to be without power," she said.

The race question, addressed directly

Gary is a majority-Black city, and some residents have accused NIPSCO of slow-walking repairs there. Antoinette Edwards, 46, told the Chicago Tribune, "We have not gotten any help, any updates. No nothing... I feel like we've been left behind."

Birmingham, who is Black, rejected that framing directly when CNN and PBS NewsHour asked. "We have areas that are probably affluent where we still have customers out as well... This has nothing to do with race or any type of division," she said. "It's really a matter of where the storm hit." Gary Mayor Eddie Melton backed that account, telling PBS NewsHour the outages are "clearly not just a Gary situation. It is a northwest Indiana situation," while pledging hot meals, tarps and charging stations for residents.

There's no evidence in the reporting to adjudicate this dispute one way or the other. NIPSCO says storm damage, not neighborhood demographics, is driving the restoration timeline. Residents in Gary say the outcome looks the same either way: their lights have been off the longest.

Frustration has turned dangerous

On Aug. 14, someone fired gunshots at NIPSCO repair crews, according to the Chicago Tribune. No one was injured, and no arrests have been made as of Thursday's reporting.

The death toll and the wider disaster

Statewide, seven people have died in connection with the storms, according to Liz Woods, spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, cited by CNN and the Epoch Times: a 4-year-old boy, three men and three women. Indiana Gov. Mike Braun declared a statewide disaster emergency on Aug. 13 and said he anticipated an additional $5 million in federal disaster assistance after speaking with President Trump, according to the Epoch Times. Fox News reported Trump signed an emergency declaration for Indiana around Aug. 17, with Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., discussing the storm's impact and outages on air.

Indianapolis saw its worst flooding in more than 30 years, Mayor Joe Hogsett said, per the Epoch Times. More than 350 evacuations happened in Delaware County, with additional evacuations in Marion County and a senior mobile home community in Tipton County.

Separately, PBS NewsHour reported flash flooding hit Columbus, Ohio, on Thursday, Aug. 20, with emergency crews rescuing stranded motorists and pulling a 12-year-old boy from a bridge he'd been swept off. That's a distinct, more recent weather event, not part of the original Aug. 11 storm system.