Gary, Indiana, has been without electricity for nearly two weeks after a powerful storm hit the area, closing businesses, closing schools, ruining food, stopping gas pumps, and causing food lines.
“We’re at day 12, and 12 days is too long for families to be without power,” said the city’s mayor Eddie Melton in a video message Sunday. He’s urging Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) to restore power to all of the city’s residents by the end of Tuesday, he told residents.
“Twelve days is too long for parents to worry about their children, and for businesses to lose revenue, and for families to wonder when the relief is finally going to come. Today, I want the people of Gary to know this. I want you to know that I share their frustration,” Melton said.
At one point, there were nearly 374,500 power outages in the area, The Guardian reports, with that number dropping to 14,500 by Sunday and 10,187 by Monday. Gary has a population estimated at 67,289, with its metro area estimated at 680,661 according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
While most schools reopened in the city Monday (Gary started school on August 6) after a nearly two-week break, they opened on a two-hour delay. Melton said that “NIPSCO has so much more work to do. We’ve pushed them to do more and do it faster.” Local residents have sued the utility provider, blaming it for failing to trim trees that disabled power lines.
“This situation was predictable. It was obvious and it was preventable,” Otto Shragal, an attorney with the Allen Law Group, told The Guardian. Indiana Governor Mike Braun also blamed NIPSCO, telling Inside INdiana Business that the utility “needs to pick up the pace, because we’ve given them national guard help, all of our agencies.”
One-third of Gary’s residents are under the poverty line, and have endured these conditions since August 11. The city is majority-Black in a state where Republicans control the legislature and governorship, and have long neglected the city by giving it meager state funding and blocking measures that would have expanded the municipality’s tax base.
Braun said on Friday that he “formally requested an expedited major disaster declaration for individual and public assistance for 54 counties from FEMA,” which, if granted, would “mean significantly more resources to accelerate Indiana’s recovery from the recent severe weather.” A state fund is reportedly providing emergency aid grants of up to $5,000, and last week, President Trump declared a state of emergency for Indiana counties affected by the severe storms.
Local celebrities Keith Lee, a food critic, and Indiana Pacers player Tyrese Haliburton are co-hosting an event to distribute relief supplies along with the Salvation Army, ACE Hardware, and Gary officials outside of the city’s Roosevelt Pavilion Monday, joining several other local aid efforts. Hopefully, all of those along with full restoration of power can ease residents’ difficulties in the short-term, as cleanup and repairs could take many months.
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