Janie Gray, of Portage, had three trees fall on her house in the Aug. 11 derecho.
“It was pretty scary,” she said as she stood in line for a free lunch at Saturday’s Portage Strong event at Founders Square.
Gray grabbed the emergency bag first. “By the time I got to my kids, I heard a huge boom.”
They’re safe, although the damage to the city was widespread.
“It didn’t even look like my neighborhood. It was so devastating,” she said.
A neighbor’s house had a lot of trees. “Every tree went toward the road,” she said.
“I’ve been without power since Day 1,” Gray said. That marks 11 days without electricity, trying to keep herself and her eight children safe and not getting on each other’s nerves.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life,” she said.
According to NIPSCO’s outage website, 30,789 customers remained without power as of 3 p.m. Saturday. Just over 3,870 of those customers live in Portage. More than 17,500 Gary customers also remained without power.
The utility has said that Portage and Gary residents are expected to have their power restored by the end of the day Tuesday, two weeks after 99 mph winds tore through the region, taking out power poles and trees, damaging homes and postponing the start of the school year.
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.
Organizations across the region and beyond have come together to assist residents impacted by the storm. Saturday afternoon, the Chicago Bears joined the mix, announcing a $100,000 donation to Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago and $100,000 to Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Gary, according to a release.
Additionally, Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana announced Saturday it donated $100,000 to the Calumet Township Trustee’s Office to support ongoing recovery efforts for residents impacted by the severe storms, according to a release.
Back in Portage, Gray said the insurance adjuster showed up at her house Saturday, just before the Portage Strong event. “Nobody’s hurt. We’re all safe. I’m really grateful to God. No one else could have kept us safe,” Gray said.
“It doesn’t stop our spirits. It doesn’t stop people from caring about each other,” she said.
Daniella Douglas, of Portage, watched as her son Dominic Rangel, of Portage, covered himself in bubbles before asking Mom to wipe bubbles out of his eyes and nose. Then he went back into the bubbles for more.
Being without power for 10 days meant losing all the food in the refrigerator, losing work, and trying to keep the family of six stable.
The derecho was one of the first times they’ve had to shelter in place, Douglas said.
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“The sky just turned green, and the wind started going.”
That night, the family drove around the city to survey the damage. “It was a total blackout across the entire city,” she said, except for the Meijer store.
Douglas saw crushed golf carts, crushed vehicles and trees on houses. “Trees we can handle,” she said, but the damage to homes was heartbreaking,
Andrew and Jessica Law were still without power Saturday. They have a generator, but not for the whole house. “We’re all confined to one room,” Jessica said. That includes Andrew, Jessica and their four children.
“We get them out of the house whenever possible,” Jessica said.
Adding to the burden is paying $50 a day to keep the generator going, Andrew said.
Nate Uldricks, of Beverly Shores, drove past his grandparents’ house Saturday on the way to the Portage Strong event. “Trees that have been longer than us” were downed. A tree had fallen on the house where he grew up.
“It’s an opportunity for planting new trees,” he said.
Mayor Austin Bonta spoke at the event.
“This is not a celebration of the power being back on,” he said, “because the power’s not back.”
Rather, the event was a celebration of the community’s response to the disaster.
“We have not completed our city’s recovery,” Bonta said, but everyone needed a “brain break,” a chance to look and see how much has been accomplished in the nearly two weeks since the storm.
The event offered free food, games for kids and adults, mental health support and help for residents’ spiritual needs. “We even have resources for the pups and maybe the cats here,” he said.
“I am very happy for the turnout,” said one of the organizers, Wayne Antusas, founder of Builder of Men Ministries. “I feel energized. I think all of us needed this.”
“I hope this will be a catalyst for people coming together,” he said.
The Portage Ready team was signing up volunteers to help with recovery efforts. “We’re going to keep celebrating our city’s recovery in steps throughout this process,” Bonta said.
Morgan Luna, of Portage, was among the people signing up volunteers. Her home wasn’t damaged, but her neighbors’ homes were.
“Honestly, I’m just trying to help people” who might not have friends or neighbors to help, she said.
Councilwoman Gina Giese-Hurst was also signing people up. “It’s amazing, the conversations you have,” she said, while listening to residents. The night of the storm, she spent the night at Woodland Park. After that, she went to the Bonner Center.
At one house, she said, “the husband was on one side, the wife was on the other.” The husband got out on his own, but she had to be cut out with a chainsaw.
“It’s heartbreaking,” she said, to hear stories of people without others to help them. That’s the value of the volunteers.
“It’s been healing, just watching everybody pull together,” Geise-Hurst said.
“Every day at City Hall at 10 am, there’s people showing up to help.”
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.