After a storm hit Gary, Ind., plunging much of the predominantly black city into darkness for two weeks earlier this month, what happened next became all too familiar to Kimia Williams.
The outage reminded the 50-year-old woman of her experience in New Orleans in 2005, when hurricane katrina Many people were left without power.
Williams’ home was one of more than 38,300 homes and businesses in Gary without power due to the outage. August 11 storm. She initially tried to hold on and stay put, but darkness got the better of her and Williams traveled to Indianapolis to be with her children.
“It’s so exciting. It’s so dark,” Williams told The Associated Press on Monday.
One of America’s poorest and darkest cities remained without power Monday. The day before, Gary Mayor Eddie Melton called the pace of repairs “unacceptable.”
“We’re on day 12, and 12 days is too long for families to be without power, too long for parents to worry about their children, and too long for businesses,” Melton said in an update to the community.
Northern Indiana Public Service, the region’s electricity provider, said Monday that more than 370,000 customers were without power and more than 364,000 customers had service restored. Remaining customers should have power restored by Tuesday.
“Our teams are assigned to handle outages large and small, and we remain committed to reaching every impacted customer in all communities,” the company said. “No outage will be overlooked and no customer will be left behind as we continue our recovery efforts.”
As Indiana residents waited for service to be restored, storms swept through Memphis on Saturday, leaving about 34,000 customers without power as of late Monday afternoon, according to information on the website of Memphis Electric, Gas & Water. The utility said that number represents less than 8% of its customers.
Some residents compared the situation to Gary.
Lawsuit filed after prolonged power outage
A resident of neighboring Porter County filed a lawsuit in state court last week alleging NIPSCO’s negligence and seeking a class action lawsuit against Indiana residents who suffered losses as a result. The complaint alleges that the utility failed to maintain trees and other vegetation hazards growing near its power lines, a failure that “predictably” led to recent power outages and other incidents after storms caused vegetation to fall from power lines.
In a written statement, NIPSCO said in a statement that the company “strongly disagrees” with the characterization of its vegetation management practices and will “vigorously defend” it in court. The vegetation management process is overseen by the Indiana Public Utility Regulatory Commission.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun said Monday that he has directed state consumer advocates to petition for an investigation into NIPSCO’s preparations and response to extended power outages caused by recent severe weather.
The investigation also aims to look into whether the utility “adequately maintained vegetation and cleared rights-of-way to protect its infrastructure, and whether funds approved by state regulators for infrastructure and reliability improvements were used as promised,” Braun said.
Decades of disinvestment exacerbate weather impacts
Experts point out that in the case of severe weather, natural disasters, especially intense heat, The poor are the most vulnerable.
Like many Northern Rust Belt cities, Gary has been suffering from disinvestment for decades as it loses population and industry. About 55,000 of the city’s 69,000 residents are Black, and more than 29% of the population lives in poverty, according to the Census 2024 American Community Survey.
Indiana’s poverty rate is about 12%.
Gary’s estimated median household income is about $40,752, well below the $71,959 in the rest of the state.
Stephen Pantano, senior vice president of market transformation at the Urban Land Institute Impact Lab, said the wealthier a person is financially, the more options they have when facing severe weather and natural disasters.
“Some people don’t have the ability to own a car and go somewhere else, and don’t have the means to go somewhere outside of their community where there might be electricity,” he said.
As climate risks increase, problems are likely to increase.
“The question is where the lightning strikes on any given day and which specific community is hit,” Pantano said. “This time it was Gary’s numbers, but next time it will be a different city. Issues of aging infrastructure and disinvestment tend to exacerbate the impacts on communities that have long faced these problems.”
Both white and black residents await improvements
Williams, who is black and describes herself as low-income, does what she can to save food for her family.
“I use the car battery as a generator,” she said. “I plugged the refrigerator into an inverter. I learned that from Katrina.”
It was a last gasp effort. Williams, who returned from Indianapolis on Sunday after learning of the power outage, said the food was still spoiling.
“My house smells musty,” she said.
Erin Carreon, who is pursuing a doctorate in social work at the University of Chicago, said Gary’s troubles didn’t start with the storm but were something more serious than the power outage.
White flight, shrinking jobs and the closing of steel plants led to decades of disinvestment in Gary, she said.
“Growing up in Gary, social inequality was very apparent to me,” she said Monday. “Seeing how this city has been neglected over the years has been central to my life.”
Carreon is 40 years old, white, and lives in the city. She’s also been without power since the storm hit.
_____
AP video journalist Laura Bagfield in Gary, Ind., and AP writer Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. all rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
theme
storm
