Gary, Indiana, nears full power restoration more than 2 weeks after violent storms
More than two weeks after violent storms wiped out power to thousands of customers, the lights and air conditioners were finally back on Wednesday for almost all residents of Gary, Indiana.As of Wednesday afternoon, fewer than 250 utility customers in the city of 69,000 were still experiencing outages, according to the Northern Indiana Public Service Company, known as NIPSCO.“Storm restoration efforts related to the Aug.
11 storm and subsequent weather events are substantially complete,” the company said in an update posted to its website Wednesday morning.“While crews continue working through a limited number of individual outage cases, restoration activities have concluded across the broader service territory.”A derecho — a storm that can produce tornado-strength winds — struck Indiana and other parts of the Midwest with straight-line winds between 70 and 100-plus mph on the morning of Aug.
11, the National Weather Service said.It tore down power lines and inflicted what NIPSCO called “the worst damage in known company history,” knocking out power to 80% of its customers, around 375,000.Fewer than 250 outages remained Wednesday night in the rest of the company’s service area.In addition to the derecho, there were also tornadoes, including a 26-mile-long EF2 twister that touched down in Illinois and went into Indiana, according to the National Weather Service.
That tornado had an estimated peak wind of 110 mph, and it damaged roofs and uprooted trees, according to the agency.The utility company had come under fire for the long delay in restoring power.In an address Sunday, Gary Mayor Eric Melton said “the current pace of restoration is unacceptable.”Some residents in Gary, a Rust Belt city on the coast of Lake Michigan, around 25 miles southeast of Chicago, described people sleeping in their running cars with the air conditioning on to get some relief from the heat.Calvin Boone, 44, said this week that there have been thefts of generators...