r/nwi

the lights just came on.

5 minutes ago.

this is a kind of plus to my last post, but for anyone sitting here saying that Gary doesn’t deserve power or that Gary is low priority because of the shooting that was obviously not what the media is it out to be is insane.

There are real people who live here real citizens, elderly people that live here. Children that go to school out here There is a community of us here. Gary is not as scary as you think it is.

And I really do think that this deserve its own post because it really does have to go into. Wondering if y’all just hate minorities that much or if it’s ties into racism because Gary is a predominantly black city. as a 18 year-old, I will never get online and say that a whole city doesn’t deserve power

The mayor Gary is trying to change Gary and make it better for the community and it’s people who live here and all of you crazy people saying that we don’t deserve power. Again and I hope that you all get what you deserve. Have a great day.💕

EDIT——
I wanna make this clear that this is not a dig or me trying to talk about Nipsco. That is a whole completely different topic. And I have my own opinions about that. This post is 100% directly towards the people who are just saying dumb shit. And I’ve just got tired of hearing it. I do argue back with people, so if you have something dumb to say, I hope you have everything credited!!!!!!

It's warm but not hot. The humidity has let up. I'm sitting back on the sofa with a take-out iced coffee in my hand and Steely Dan in my ears.

This is my first post ever so bare with me. I live in gary close to westside high school and i’m trying my hardest to be optimistic and that it will just turn on in the middle of the night but it really feels like nipsco isn’t going to do anything. We don’t have much trees down where I live. There is a line down like down the street and nipsco has yet to even come down it!

You drive to westside and the tree workers are just sitting in the parking lot talking and laughing like everything is okay. I don’t mean to be rude to linemen I know it takes a lot and that it is hard work. However this is taking a TOLL on me.

I feel bad for Highland and Munster because they have to wait til NEXT WEEK after nipsco said 100% by friday. Gary still isn’t on the list. No updates no anything. This is probably just me being dramatic but i feel like they just left us and said oh well.

Is "Storm Lucy" the brainchild of some NIPSCO comms person, or is there an agency that names derechos and disasters?

I'm trying to find the source of the name "Storm Lucy." The only two official references I've seen to it are in NIPSCO public communications through Hammond and Portage. I couldn't find any meteorological agency that names derechos.

If it is NIPSCO, it seems like it might be an attempt: (1) To reinforce the framing of the storm as a historic event that they could not be expected to have been prepared for. (2) Not have to put the date of the event in every reference, so readers aren't subconsciously doing the math.

I was also disappointed when they stopped putting total customers without power in their updates, instead including the peak number of simultaneous outages and the number of outages restored. This essentially counted outages once and restorations twice for repeated outages. They have since started releasing specific information again.

The storm is a historic event for the area. I don't have the expertise to know whether NIPSCO's preparation was adequate or not. It does raise red flags when an organization starts to use clever framing instead of giving more details.

I hope there is an outside audit of NIPSCO's preparation and the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission's oversight. Power companies are legal monopolies, and the state government is responsible for them.

In the meantime: Thank you utility workers from NIPSCO, KVREMC, and all around the country who have been working hard to restore power. And if you hear an official refer to Storm Lucy, ask them who named it.

​

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.

Once you get power, you're not in this anymore. You're out of it. Also quit saying it takes a village. Most "villages" have spots entirely lit up and others that are completely out of power. Outages went up by 5k after they posted their 4pm update 😂😂😂😂

Loud boom and the power is gone again. The power came back on Sunday afternoon in this part of Munster, loud pop and now we’re in the dark again. I can hear my neighbors literally screaming. This is so depressing, I don’t think I can handle anymore. I know it’s not the end of the world but it feels like it. Thank you for listening.

I’ve had the pleasure of talking with several out of state lineman as my job takes me across northwest Indiana and I’ve been carrying a cooler full of pop, water, Gatorade and some Chomps meat sticks handing them out. The things they have said about NIPSCO is quite the wakeup call.

Multiple have said how unorganized NIPSCO has been and that they’ve been doing their side of things but cannot “charge the lines” as it’s not their infrastructure. Additionally multiple have confirmed reports from NIPSCO claiming that they’re not running low on parts is false. Multiple companies have reported a part shortage and NIPSCO has been slow to locate and get replacements in. Parts for transformer especially are getting rarer and rarer. When talking about timelines they are not optimistic of a full return early next week for some like Gary, Portage, and Hammond.

Multiple have voiced frustrations with NIPSCO stating that this should not be taking this long as they have so few vegetation contractors for the amount of massive and old trees within their areas along with such a messy power system. One specific company which I course will not name drop has said they’d be hard pressed to return and deal with NIPSCO. The final takeaway is believe NOTHING NIPSCO says they’re just saying whatever pleases the masses and that they’re clueless

Much love and appreciation to all those out of state lineman away from their families doing everything they can!

Who is lacking the most power as of now?

It's been a full week guys! FINALLY got decent internet connection on my phone to make this rant!

So the entire time, besides tree removal, there was virtually NO electrical work being done that wasn't in direct line of traffic. Virtually no work at all. Me and my wife drive around a lot and the only thing we seen one them fixing one line that didn't even look bad, driving around 3 trucks deep doing absolutely nothing and standing around in 6 man groups trying to get over time.

It seems by easy deduction that they PURPOSELY chose Gary and it's connecting cities to be fixed last... 100k people's sounds about the Ball Park of the entire Gary, griffith, portage and a few orher places.

Not one neighborhood here had power when in reality Gary was one of if not the first city built on the power grid. Im TIRED of hearing "it's not racism" yet from MY VIEW any time black people are affected ( New Orleans comes to mind instantly) black people and whoever connected to them (I think of the racist term for white people who like black people) get shafted. Its pretty simple to see.

Why would the ENTIRE CITY be out of power for a whole week so far, half of the people have no internet service on their phones... This isn't the first time in history this has happened and Id also like to point out that Nipsco has been found to have conducted racist practices and actually had to pay fines for it a few years back.

Its kind of crazy, I wouldn't even BE making this post if it wasn't for the ENTIRE CITY (I am not being dramatic, no one here has power) not having power. I wouldn't have even cared if it was me who didn't get power first but this is sickening.

America needs to change. Im tired of this country, the corporations, wealthy or wealthy ISH surburbanites and the selfishness of people and the racist tactics used against black people that are constantly justified ESPECIALLY here in Indiana.

Just look at how people tried to justify a multi million dollar corporation pulling out (all work? Wasn't long but meh) of here because ONE truck got shot at? Foh when is that ever an acceptable tactics? Only to the quiet racist who are vocal online.

Another thing, if you don't like Gary or black people, stop using ours streets and using Gary as a detour smh.

Edit: An hour after I wrote this my power came on and they were working all around my area.

i work night shift and since everyones generators already going i was just wondering if id be a nuisance lol

Part of the article:

Georgeff said he’s planning to go to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission and ask it to investigate NIPSCO’s handling of the emergency because even though no one can deny that the storm was unprecedented, he gets a sense that there was no sort of plan of what to do when something happens at all.

“(NIPSCO) raised our rates and locked out its people, which caused more of them to leave, so we now have more contractors here where the trucks alone cost $500 a day. That’s not even the cost of the crews running them,” he said. “And we know that NIPSCO will get reimbursed by FEMA, so there needs to be an investigation, and I really think some heads need to roll.”

This part too 😡

“I’ve been out talking to contractors in my neighborhood who’re just sitting there waiting for direction, and a couple of them said they don’t want to tell me what’s going on because it would (make me mad),” he said Monday. “The communication with NIPSCO has been terrible; you can’t get a person to talk to, so they make you go online where you know the message has been vetted and doesn’t tell you anything. There’s no personal communication.”

F

Pros and cons of this? I'm guessing it's very expensive. Pretty uneducated on this front, but I'm not a fan of noisy generators and pumping more gas for these. Thoughts?