NWI residents: would you support an independent review of NIPSCO's response to this disaster?
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I'm relatively new to Northwest Indiana, so I don't have a large local social network. But after watching what people throughout this region have gone through during these outages, I decided I didn't want to just complain about it and move on.
I'm putting together a petition asking the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission and other state officials for a transparent, independent review of NIPSCO's preparedness and response to the August 2026 storms.
To be very clear: this is not directed at the lineworkers. The crews working outside in dangerous and exhausting conditions deserve our appreciation.
And I'm also not suggesting NIPSCO somehow could have prevented a massive natural disaster.
What I want answers about is what can be controlled:
- Was the system adequately prepared for a disaster of this scale?
- Was infrastructure maintenance and vegetation management sufficient?
- Were enough emergency workers, contractors, equipment and replacement materials available?
- Why have so many residents struggled to get useful, localized restoration information?
- How were communities prioritized?
- What protections or assistance are available for people who lost food, medication, income or housing stability?
- Most importantly: what will be changed before this happens again?
NIPSCO itself has described the August 11 event as one of the largest outage events in its history, with approximately 301,000 outages affecting more than 60% of its electric customers.
Something that consequential deserves an after-action review that the public can see.
I'm going to post the petition once it's live. But before I do, I'd really like input from people throughout NWI—especially Gary, Lake Station, Hammond, Highland, Munster, Merrillville, Hobart, Crown Point, Portage, Michigan City and other heavily affected communities.
What happened where you live? How long were you without power? What problems did you have getting information or assistance? And what do you think regulators need to investigate?
If this is something you'd sign, please say so. And once it's posted, I'm going to need help getting it outside my own very small circle and into the communities affected by this.