The 2026 Gary Air Show was canceled by the city’s mayor to keep focus and efforts on recovery from severe storms that left catastrophic damage across northwest Indiana earlier this week, the city announced Friday.
Trees and power lines were downed, and property, homes and vehicles were damaged and destroyed by the violent storms that hammered Gary with wind speeds up to 99 mph and caused significant flooding, the city said.
“Due to the unprecedented level of damage and the extensive recovery efforts currently underway, Mayor Melton has made the difficult decision to cancel this year’s Gary Air Show,” the city said in the announcement.
The event was originally scheduled to take place August 21 through 23 at Marquette Park.
“This was not an easy decision,” said Mayor Eddie Melton. “The Gary Air Show is a remarkable event that residents and visitors throughout the region have enjoyed for many years. However, our responsibility right now is to focus every available resource on helping our residents, restoring our neighborhoods and returning Gary to normalcy as quickly as possible. Given the magnitude of this disaster, it would not be responsible to extend our resources toward an event when our community needs them most.”
More than 185,000 NIPSCO customers are still without power three days after the storm as the utility’s crews work around the clock on repair efforts.
“Extensive tree damage resulted in thousands of downed power lines and contributed to the destruction of homes, vehicles and other property,” the City of Gary said. “The scope of the damage is significant, and recovery and cleanup efforts are expected to continue for several weeks. Mayor Melton made the decision following extensive discussions with members of the Gary Common Council and Gary Public Safety leadership.”
The mayor stressed the decision was about “about putting our community first.”
“The air show will always be an important part of Gary, but right now our priority is the safety and well-being of our residents and restoring our city,” he said.
Ability for neighboring communities to provide mutual aid for public safety to Gary during the event also played a role in the decision.
“The City relies heavily on mutual aid from neighboring communities to supplement emergency response personnel, and those resources are currently stretched to their limits as communities throughout the region respond to the storm as call volumes have doubled since Tuesday,” the city said.
The Department of Homeland Security is expected to be in Gary next week to assess the extent of the storm damage and assist with the ongoing recovery effort.
“I want to personally thank our public safety personnel, general services employees, City workers, and the hundreds of volunteers who have worked tirelessly since this storm hit,” Melton said. “Many of these individuals are making extraordinary sacrifices while dealing with power outages and damage to their own homes and families. Their dedication to Gary and their neighbors has not gone unnoticed, and we are extremely grateful.”
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