More than 20,000 people are still without power in northwest Indiana after severe storms rolled through the area nearly two weeks ago.
A bout of severe weather, including wind gusts up to 100 mph, heavily affected the region on Aug. 11.
Homes in Gary, Portage, Lake Station and Munster still lacked electricity as of Sunday morning, according to NIPSCO, the local power company. In Gary, Mayor Eddie Melton said at least 17,000 citizens remained without power Saturday. NIPSCO officials have estimated electricity will be restored to Gary by the end of day on Tuesday, Aug. 25.
Frustration among residents is high, as many seek aid at shelters and receive food from distribution centers. The city's schools remain closed.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun has activated the National Guard to assist with restoration efforts, while President Trump has approved an emergency declaration for the state. This allows the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist with recovery efforts from the storm.
Gov. Braun on Saturday also demanded NIPSCO hurry to restore power. "Bring in more crews. Put every available resource into the field. Get creative. Get the job done. Hoosiers have waited long enough," Braun wrote on social media.
The start of the prolonged outage coincided with an announcement by the local power company's parent, NiSource Inc., that it would be paying out around $140 million in dividends to its shareholders.
Melody Birmingham, executive vice president of NIPSCO's parent company NiSource and president of NiSource's utilities division, said during a press conference last week that the storm's damage represented one of "the most extensive and complex" situations their recovery crews had ever encountered.
"When I say complex, these aren't simple repairs. These are systems that are being rebuilt," Birmingham said. "These are lines that ordinarily take us—and systems that ordinarily take weeks or months, that we are trying to accomplish in days and or weeks."
The company's slow response has also been criticized by civil rights leaders and advocacy groups who have raised questions about systemic inequity. Gary's population is nearly 80% Black.
Civil rights leader Bernice King, daughter of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., said last week that the power outage in Gary is "part of a pattern" and that residents there "deserve more than survival."
"Black communities have too often been expected to endure conditions that would be treated as intolerable somewhere else," King wrote on social media. "We are expected to survive the neglect, absorb the loss, help ourselves, and wait for urgency to arrive."
The ACLU advocacy group's branch in Indiana stressed that inequality, and urgency, too. "It's important that, when a disaster happens, the relief reaches every community quickly and equitably." the group said on social media Saturday.
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