Tens of thousands of Northwest Indiana residents are entering a second weekend without power as even Indiana Gov. Mike Braun is pushing for NIPSCO to speed up its restoration efforts following the Aug. 11 derecho storm.
As of 3:30 p.m. Friday, NIPSCO’s outage website listed 41,290 customers who remained without power. Almost half of that total is in Gary, where 20,124 remain without power. Other large pockets of outages remaining include 4,947 in Portage, 3,528 in Lake Station, 2,184 in Merrillville, 2,107 in Hobart, 1,884 in Griffith, 1,876 in Highland, 1,256 in Hammond, and 1,414 in Munster. After the Aug. 11 storm, around 301,000 customers were without power, and the number grew with multiple rain storms last week. NIPSCO has called the outage the largest in its history.
Braun posted a message on X/Twitter Thursday afternoon that it was “unacceptable that so many Hoosiers are still without power.”
“I deeply appreciate the linemen and crews who are putting in the legwork and long hours to address these outages,” Braun’s statement read. “It’s on NIPSCO management to step up, take this seriously and restore power now.
Braun said numerous state agencies, including the Indiana National Guard, Indiana Department of Transportation, Department of Correction, Indiana State Police, and the Department of Natural Resources, are taking unprecedented action to help NIPSCO turn the lights back on.
Supervised inmates from Westville Correctional Facility have been assisting communities by picking up debris in communities such as Portage and Griffith. They were observed cleaning up Griffith’s Central Park on Friday.
Braun also confirmed that he has formally requested an expedited major disaster declaration for individual and public assistance for 54 counties from FEMA, including Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties.
“If granted, this declaration will mean significantly more resources to accelerate Indiana’s recovery from the recent severe weather,” Braun posted on X/Twitter. “I will do everything in my power to ensure Hoosiers have the resources needed to recover.”
Local leaders have pressed NIPSCO for better communication in the last few days as their residents are getting increasingly frustrated with the slow pace of power restoration. A Thursday Facebook post by Portage Mayor Austin Bonta said during a conference call with local leaders, NIPSCO acknowledged that there have been problems regarding “outage information getting fully communicated to their customer service people.”
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As a result, Bonta said people in cities and towns across the region are reporting that customer service representatives have told them that they were not aware of certain streets being without power or they were incorrectly marked as restored.
When asked about these issues, which have been mentioned on various town pages, NIPSCO didn’t directly answer the question and instead pointed to its online outage map as providing a “general view of outages and restoration activity across our service territory and is not designed to display individual customer addresses.”
Report outages on the NIPSCO app, by texting the word “Out” to 444111, online at NIPSCO.com/out, or by calling 1-800-4-NIPSCO.
Response in Gary
Gary’s lack of power after nearly two weeks is attracting more resources.
Mayor Eddie Melton requested that NIPSCO bring in more linemen and vegetation managers to expedite restoration efforts and get residents back online before its current estimate of Tuesday, August 25, but there hasn’t been confirmation on whether that request will be fulfilled.
World Central Kitchen, the food relief nonprofit founded in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake by Chef Jose Andres, announced Friday that it is sending personnel to work alongside community members to “best support families in need.”
Houston-based rapper Trae Tha Truth and his Relief Gang organization will bring an 18-wheeler with supplies to Tree of Life Missionary Baptist Center, 2530 W. 11th Ave., Gary. Starting at 10 a.m. Saturday, residents can receive cleaning supplies, personal care products, household items, blankets, diapers, and other necessities.