GARY, Ind. — More than a week after a devastating series of storms swept through Indiana, thousands of residents in the northwestern part of the state were still without electricity, leaving families struggling to cope with heat, spoiled food, limited communications and the uncertainty of when normal life will return.
The prolonged outage followed a powerful derecho and additional severe weather that struck on Aug. 11. Winds reached as high as 99 mph in Gary, while falling trees and power lines caused extensive damage across the region. At least seven people have died in storm-related incidents, and the disaster also produced historic flooding in parts of Indiana.
For many residents, the storm itself lasted hours. The recovery, however, has stretched into a second week.
Thousands remain without electricity
Northern Indiana Public Service Co., or NIPSCO, has restored power to hundreds of thousands of customers since the storm, but tens of thousands remained without electricity in the days following the disaster.
On Friday, NIPSCO reported that roughly 43,000 customers were still without power across its service territory. More than 20,000 outages were in Gary, one of the communities hit hardest by the storm. The utility projected that power would not be fully restored in Gary and nearby Portage until Tuesday, Aug. 25.
The scale of the damage has made restoration unusually difficult.
NIPSCO said its crews have been working continuously and that emergency assistance has been brought in from other parts of the country. More than 330,000 customers had regained electricity by Friday, but the remaining repairs involve damaged infrastructure rather than simple individual service interruptions.
Gary faces the toughest conditions
Gary, a city of about 67,000 people near the Illinois border, has become the center of the outage crisis.
The storm uprooted trees throughout the city and damaged homes, roads and utility infrastructure. Local emergency officials described the destruction as severe, with trees and utility equipment knocked down across large areas.
Lake County officials said more than 300,000 people in the county lost electricity at some point following the storm. The scale of the initial outage demonstrated how widespread the damage was before restoration crews could begin rebuilding the network.
For residents who remain without power, the effects go far beyond dark rooms.
Air conditioning has been unavailable during days of warm weather. Refrigerated food has spoiled. Phones and other devices must be charged in vehicles or at public facilities. Families have had to purchase ice, gasoline and meals outside their homes.
Some residents have even slept in their cars because their homes became too hot.
Families adapt to life without power
Residents have developed temporary routines to cope.
Some line up for gasoline to keep generators operating. Others travel long distances to find laundromats that still have electricity.
Food has become another challenge.
Families without functioning refrigerators have had to discard groceries and depend on restaurants, community meal programs and donated supplies.
Residents have also gathered outdoors, using grills to cook food and spending time with neighbors rather than remaining inside dark, overheated homes.
The Washington Post reported that some residents described the experience as living in “survival mode,” with the outage disrupting virtually every part of daily life.
Generators are difficult to find
Portable generators have become one of the most valuable commodities in affected communities.
But demand has far exceeded supply in some areas.
Residents have reported traveling considerable distances to locate generators, while those who already own them face the continuing expense of gasoline.
For families with limited financial resources, the costs quickly accumulate.
Gasoline, ice, replacement food, restaurant meals and transportation all add expenses at exactly the moment when many households may already be dealing with storm damage to their homes.
That economic burden is particularly serious in Gary, where many residents have fewer financial resources to absorb a prolonged emergency.
Businesses are struggling too
The blackout has affected local businesses as severely as households.
Restaurants, laundromats and other businesses have been forced to close or operate with generators.
Businesses that depend on refrigeration face the possibility of losing inventory. Others cannot operate electronic payment systems, air-conditioning equipment or other essential machinery.
The longer the outage continues, the greater the financial damage becomes.
Some businesses have attempted to remain open using generators, turning themselves into informal community centers where residents can eat, charge phones or escape the heat.
That community response has provided some relief, but it cannot replace a functioning electrical system.
Schools have been disrupted
The continuing outages have also affected education.
Schools in Gary were closed during the week as officials assessed conditions and waited for more information about when electricity and other essential services would be restored.
School closures create additional problems for working families.
Parents may have to find child care while businesses and public facilities are still operating under emergency conditions.
Students also lose access to classrooms, computers and other resources needed for the beginning of the academic year.
The disruption is therefore not limited to the immediate aftermath of the storm. It can affect families for weeks after the weather itself has passed.
Officials face growing criticism
As the outage stretched beyond a week, frustration with NIPSCO increased.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun publicly criticized the pace of restoration, describing the situation as unacceptable and urging the utility's management to accelerate the work.
State agencies, including the Indiana National Guard and Department of Correction, have also been involved in the response and recovery effort.
Local officials have faced questions from residents who want to know why some neighborhoods received power before others.
In Gary, frustration intensified after the city was initially left out of a NIPSCO social-media update listing estimated restoration times.
Utility officials said they initially could not provide a reliable estimate because of the extent of the damage.
NIPSCO says the repairs are unusually complicated
NIPSCO has defended its response by emphasizing the scale and complexity of the destruction.
The utility says its workers have been operating around the clock and that additional crews have been brought in from outside the region.
The company also says many of its own employees live in the affected communities and are experiencing the disaster themselves.
NIPSCO executives have described the work as rebuilding damaged systems rather than simply reconnecting individual customers.
That distinction is important.
When a storm damages a single power line, crews may be able to replace equipment and restore service relatively quickly.
A derecho capable of knocking down large numbers of trees, poles and transmission structures can create a much more complicated reconstruction project.
The storm was unusually powerful
The Aug. 11 weather event was not an ordinary thunderstorm.
The National Weather Service classified the system as a derecho — a long-lived, widespread windstorm capable of producing destructive straight-line winds over a large area.
Wind gusts reached 99 mph in Gary, while additional storms brought heavy rain and flooding to other parts of Indiana.
The White River rose to levels not seen since 1913, according to the National Weather Service, adding another dimension to a disaster already characterized by wind damage.
The combination of wind, falling trees, flooding and infrastructure damage made recovery more difficult.
A disaster affecting more than electricity
The power outage is only one part of the broader disaster.
At least seven people died in storm-related incidents across Indiana, while homes were damaged and communities experienced historic flooding.
The prolonged blackout has compounded those problems.
Residents returning to homes after evacuating have found flooded basements, fallen trees and damaged roofs, sometimes while still lacking electricity.
Emergency workers and volunteers have therefore been dealing with multiple problems simultaneously: debris removal, flooding, electrical repairs, food distribution and support for displaced residents.
Community support becomes essential
Despite the frustration, residents have also organized to help one another.
Community groups have distributed food and supplies, while volunteers have traveled to affected neighborhoods to assist with cleanup.
Churches and disaster-relief organizations have organized teams to help residents remove debris and deal with flood damage.
The Washington Post reported that volunteers from the Southern Baptist Convention's disaster-relief network were working in Indiana, while local businesses and residents were also finding ways to help neighbors.
In some neighborhoods, residents have gathered outdoors to cook meals together.
Those efforts cannot restore the electrical grid, but they provide an important social safety net during a period when formal services are stretched.
Health and safety concerns grow
Extended power outages can create serious health risks.
Without refrigeration, food can spoil quickly. Residents relying on generators must operate them safely because improper placement can lead to dangerous carbon-monoxide buildup.
People who depend on electricity for medical equipment face an even more urgent problem.
High temperatures also make prolonged outages more difficult, particularly for older adults, young children and people with medical vulnerabilities.
The longer the outage continues, the more these risks accumulate.
The road to recovery will be longer
Even after electricity is restored, residents will still face weeks or months of recovery.
Damaged roofs need repairs. Fallen trees must be removed. Flooded basements require cleanup. Businesses must recover from lost revenue, and families must replace food and other necessities destroyed during the outage.
Infrastructure will also need to be evaluated.
The storm has raised questions about the resilience of Indiana's electrical system and whether communities should make additional investments in vegetation management, transmission infrastructure and emergency preparedness.
Those discussions are likely to continue long after the immediate crisis ends.
Gary residents keep waiting
For people still without electricity, however, long-term questions about infrastructure are secondary to the immediate problem.
They want their lights back.
They want their refrigerators working.
They want their homes cool enough to sleep in and their phones charged without having to drive elsewhere.
Some residents have described the experience as exhausting and humiliating, particularly as they watch utility trucks travel through their neighborhoods without knowing when their own homes will be restored.
Others have emphasized the resilience of the community and the willingness of neighbors to help one another.
That combination — anger and solidarity — has defined much of Gary's response.
A second week without power
The Indiana disaster illustrates how a severe storm can continue affecting a community long after skies clear.
The derecho lasted only part of a day, but its consequences have stretched across more than a week.
Tens of thousands of residents have had to reorganize their lives around a missing basic service, while utility crews work through damaged infrastructure that must be rebuilt rather than simply switched back on.
For residents of Gary and other hard-hit communities, the recovery will ultimately be measured not only by when the electricity returns, but by how quickly homes, businesses, schools and damaged infrastructure can return to normal.
Until then, thousands of Indiana families remain caught between the disaster that has already passed and the recovery that has yet to arrive.
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