As Power is Restored in Gary, Residents Still Have Questions About Accountability

For nearly two weeks, residents of Gary, Indiana, have been living without electricity. Now, the lights are finally coming back on.

NIPSCO, the utility serving Gary and much of Northwest Indiana, said it has restored power to 99 percent of customers affected by the August 11 storm, which brought winds approaching 100 miles per hour and knocked out electricity for more than 370,000 customers, NBC News reported. The utility set Tuesday, August 25, as its deadline to restore power to Gary, as we previously reported.

But for the residents of the predominantly Black city, restoring the power doesn’t erase the pain they endured in the process.

At the height of the outage, tens of thousands of Gary customers were without electricity. By Monday (Aug. 24), roughly 10,000 customers across Northwest Indiana remained in the dark, with the majority in Gary. Residents spent days without air conditioning, refrigeration, reliable communication and essential medical equipment, according to The Atlantic.

RELATED: Left in the Dark: More Than a Week After Devastating Storms, Gary Residents Are Still Without Power

For many, the frustration wasn’t just about when the power would return. It was about why Gary had to wait so long in the first place.

Residents and city officials have accused NIPSCO of failing to maintain trees and vegetation around power lines. We also told you that Indiana Gov. Mike Braun called for an investigation into the utility’s storm preparedness, vegetation management, infrastructure maintenance and use of ratepayer funds. A class-action lawsuit has also been filed against NIPSCO over the outage, allegations the company disputes, WBAA reported.

And then there were the bills.

As residents were still sitting in dark homes, some said they received their regular NIPSCO bills anyway. On Reddit, Gary-area customers posted about receiving bills during the outage, with some even questioning why they should be paying as usual after going without electricity for days.

That anger is especially striking because NIPSCO has faced growing scrutiny over how it responds to customers while the company moves forward with rate-related filings. The utility filed cost-adjustment requests with Indiana regulators on the same day as the storm and again afterward; if approved, the filings could eventually increase customers’ bills, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Now that the power has been restored, Gary residents are asking tough questions: Who will be held accountable? Will residents receive meaningful relief? And what happens the next time extreme weather hits a city that has already spent decades dealing with disinvestment and aging infrastructure?