On Thursday night, Luis and Connie Romero were getting ready for bed when their 15-year-old daughter screamed for them to evacuate their house.
As they left, they watched water flood their basement through windows, and the walls buckled in and split open.
“As soon as we walked away, the whole wall came in,” Luis Romeo said. “It was like a landslide in the basement. I mean, it happened like two, three seconds after we left.”
Since Thursday night, the Romeros have stayed in a hotel, where they plan to stay for “a few weeks” as they work with their insurance company and their home at the corner of 78th Avenue and Broadway is repaired.
On Monday, they received two of the 200 meals that the Food Bank of Northwest Indiana made available to Merrillville residents who were impacted by Thursday night’s storms.
“It’s a huge help,” Connie Romero said. “I mean, to not have to worry about food for just one meal, that helps us so much.”
The food distribution came as region residents and officials with the National Weather Service continue to tally the full impact of the tornadoes and violent storms that tore through Northwest Indiana and Illinois.
At least 29 tornadoes ripped across Illinois and Northwest Indiana last week, according to preliminary reports from the National Weather Service. In Northwest Indiana, an EF0 tornado traveled from St. John to Schererville; an EF2 went from Merrillville to Hobart; an EF0 struck Cedar Lake; an EF0 traveled from Schneider to Hebron; and an EF3 tornado made its way from Hebron to Kouts.
In Portage, two people without electricity after Thursday’s storm died after a portable generator filled their home with carbon monoxide, Portage Fire Chief Chris Crail said. Their names have not yet been released by the Porter County Coroner’s Office.
In another carbon monoxide incident, six people were transported to a hospital, he said.
Mayor Austin Bonta wrote about it on social media afterward, warning people to not use portable generators in or near their homes.
“Our city has now experienced several bad carbon monoxide emergencies, including tragic incidents that have taken lives,” Bonta wrote. “Our prayers are with the families and friends of those who have been lost to these issues.”
NIPSCO is still working to restore power in Portage, where the north side was hit hard by Thursday’s storm.
“As any residents rely on generators during power outages and emergencies, please remember that generators must only be used outdoors and well away from homes and buildings,” Bonta said. “Carbon monoxide cannot be seen or smelled, making it especially dangerous.”
Bonta reminded residents to check their carbon monoxide alarms and review generator safety with their family.
Back in Merrillville, Luis Romero said Monday was the couple’s first time asking for help from a Merrillville organization. The couple found out about the food bank’s distribution at Hidden Lake Park through a Facebook post.
Tricia Sheaks, vice president of operations and community impact, said the food bank passed out box lunches including sandwiches, chips, cookies and water to Merrillville residents. The organization is planning to go to other impacted cities regionally — including Hebron, Hobart and St. John — throughout the week.
Sheaks said the food bank has seen more people coming for assistance as power has been restored following the storms.
“We feel like now that people are going to start getting power, they’re going to need us the most, so they can start filling their refrigerators,” Sheaks said.
The food bank — which is located on Broadway in Merrillville — lost power Thursday, but Sheaks said the building’s generators turned on, so their cold storage food was fine. The building also didn’t have any damage, she added.
As of Monday morning, they were back to normal operations and doing what they can to help the community, Sheaks said.
“It’s eye-opening,” she added. “This is when the community needs us the most, so we’re just trying to plan some distributions. With all the extra expenses that come along with (the storm), like the power being out, losing their groceries, having to eat out, we want to alleviate some of it.”
Merrillville Councilwoman Shauna Haynes Edwards, D-2, was at the food bank distribution, giving residents information about more resources.
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Haynes Edwards said her home wasn’t hit by the tornado, but her vehicle was, and she doesn’t have power. However, Haynes Edwards has heard from residents throughout the town whose homes were ruined.
“I tear up every time,” she said. “It breaks my heart. … I just feel like, as a community, we should all come together — no matter what that looks like — and say, ‘What do you need?’”
Michelle Rushing, K-6 college and career readiness counselor at the Merrillville School Corporation, picked up lunch for a summer school student Monday. Rushing said her home wasn’t hit by a tornado, but students throughout the district were impacted.
“I’ve been trying to go through the neighborhoods, just trying to help out,” Rushing said.
The school district has sent a community resource guide to Merrillville families, which has information about shelters and the food bank. The Merrillville Rotary Club has also donated $85 in Kohl’s gift cards to impacted families to help buy new clothes, and several churches have also offered help.
Rushing has been emotional helping families, she said.
“It’s so hard to stay neutral,” Rushing added. “It’s hard to try to separate myself from them because it could’ve been me. But it’s rewarding no matter what we do.”
Andrean High School officials are also assessing what the storm means for students and staff. Andrean baseball coach Dave Pishkur has seen plenty of curve balls but nothing like the one that smashed into his school Thursday night.
“This looks like a bomb hit this place. There are 100-year-old trees down all over,” he said Friday after viewing the school rocked by an EF-2 tornado.
The Merrillville school took a direct hit, as did Broadway between 61st and 57th avenues.
A section of the school’s roof blew off and landed on the softball field, trees and power lines came down, windows broke and powerful winds twisted the baseball field’s outfield fencing and scoreboard. Much of the school was flooded.
Last week, Superintendent Colleen Brewer said the Diocese had already been embarking on a strategic plan, including a campus master plan.
“A disaster such as this will have us come together as a team to reevaluate our immediate campus needs in order to continue offering the students at Andrean an excellent high school experience focused on learning and faith,” she said.
Meanwhile, Pishkur is preparing his 59ers for a state championship baseball game despite being unable to practice on their own baseball diamond.
The finals include three Northwest Indiana schools; Kouts and Lake Central are also playing.
“We can’t play on our field. Our field is done,” said Pishkur. Wheeler High School reached out and the team practiced there before its semi-state games on Saturday. It also received other offers from Valparaiso, Portage, Munster and Hammond Morton.
He said the school’s future at 5959 Broadway has been under discussion for years. The school once considered relocating to Crown Point but announced in 2024 it would remain in Merrillville.
Because Andrean is a private Catholic school, it doesn’t receive public tax money. Its students can apply for state vouchers to help pay tuition.
In 2024, the Dean and Barbara White Foundation pledged a $150 million gift to support efforts of the Big Shoulders Fund to improve education in the Diocese of Gary schools.
“We’re in a situation now where we can’t play around any longer,” said Pishkur, the school’s director of athletics and alumni director. He’s been the school’s baseball coach since 1980.
“This could be the kick in the butt to say we have to act; you can’t Band-Aid it.
“The school is 65 years old and God gave us all this attention. Make it a better, viable school with great traditions and excellence. It could affect our future very positively. What better time to do a capital campaign.”
In south Porter County, cleanup was still well underway after tornadoes in Hebron and Kouts. Porter County Highway Superintendent Jim Polarek hasn’t seen such extensive damage in his career until now.
“Friday morning I got home about 2 a.m.,” he said. “We were trying to clean up as many roads as we could. At this point, it’s just a clean-up effort.”
A short section of Ind. 49 was closed for three days while crews cleared the destruction, including multiple downed power lines the tornado left in its wake.
Monday morning, Polarek’s crews cleaned up debris along Baums Bridge Road. He said 500 S and 600 S were still closed because of downed high-tension lines across the roads. They were just two of the road closures among “too many to list. When that (tornado) came through, everything from Hebron to south Wanatah was affected. Multiple roads are still closed,” he said.
“Until NIPSCO gets new towers put up or the lines moved, I can’t say how long it’s going to be closed,” he said. He’s gotten “nothing” from the company in the way of updates to that timeline.
Fortunately, he said the sections that are closed have no houses along them.
In the 600 block of Baums Bridge Road, three houses in a row lost roofs as well as some walls. Just a few hundred yards down the road at Five Pointes Corner, a historic former schoolhouse was also missing its roof, while a home in the 600 block of Ind. 49, one road to the east, was destroyed.
A group of people picking through the damage there weren’t up for talking, but did confirm the family living there was trapped in the basement while sheltering in place. Everyone was rescued unharmed.
Polarek said the debris is being directed to the county’s compost site for now, but “if the compost site can’t handle it, we’re going to pile it up and burn it,” he said. “We’re in the process of getting our burn permit” from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
According to NIPSCO, about 8,300 customers are still without power from Thursday’s storms. Originally, about 86,640 utility customers were without power, according to the company’s website.
Thursday’s storms also caused damage to more than 295 poles and 15 transmission towers throughout the utility’s service area.
According to NIPSCO, Hebron and Chesterton residents were expected to have power by Monday evening. Hobart, Lake Station and Long Beach are expected to have power by 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Gary, Merrillville and Portage residents are expected to have power by the end of the day Wednesday.
“While some outages can be restored relatively quickly, others require more extensive repairs due to the level and complexity of that damage,” NIPSCO’s website says. “As this work progresses, timelines may be adjusted to ensure restoration is completed safely and thoroughly.”
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Eric Lenning, meteorologist-in-charge, said the National Weather Service is still determining how many tornadoes passed through the region. Their team has surveyed areas since Thursday, and they’re collecting information from social media and local law enforcement agencies to determine where storms hit and what category they were.
“It’s a very long process, and we want to make sure that we get things as correct as possible,” Lenning said.
In addition to Thursday’s storms, he said Northwest Indiana had a derecho Wednesday night, which is a fast-moving thunderstorm with destructive winds. The derecho stretched about 400 miles, he said, starting in Iowa and ending in lower Michigan.
The National Weather Service has storm concerns for this week, especially on Wednesday, which he said could be “a very active day” for storms. The organization rates risk levels on a scale of one to five, and he anticipates this Wednesday to have a level three risk.
“I know the trauma is still fresh, and the forecast for something similar must be extraordinarily nerve-wracking for them,” Lenning said about impacted residents. “It’s got to cause a lot of anxiety. For anyone, the important thing is to make sure you have a plan to respond if the weather does get active and become dangerous.”
[email protected]; Doug Ross, Carole Carlson and Shelley Jones are freelance reporters for the Post-Tribune.