Indiana Governor Calls for NIPSCO to Be Investigated Over Power Outages After Gary Storms

Gov. Mike Braun of Indiana called for an investigation into the regional power utility on Monday after households in Gary and other cities have been left without power for nearly two weeks after a storm.

The utility, Northern Indiana Public Service Co., had promised that power would be restored by Tuesday to the nearly 4,000 customers who are still in the dark after a storm that ripped through northwest Indiana on Aug. 11. The storm toppled trees and knocked out electricity, at one point, to more than 370,000 customers.

But local and state officials have said they are increasingly furious with the utility, known as NIPSCO, and its failure to return electricity to thousands of people who have struggled in the summer heat to find food, gas and a way to stay cool. Customers said they were fed up with seeing their utility bills skyrocket in recent years. And in the aftermath of the storm, the utility may have failed to put out a wide enough call for help from other utilities, experts said, or waited too long to do so.

“Clearly something is broken here,” said Tyson Sloblock, director of the energy program at Public Citizen, a nonprofit research and consumer group. “Not having utility service is a human rights issue and can become a life and death issue.”

A nearly two-week delay in restoring power was unusual, he said, well beyond what is a typical recovery time after a storm.

Mr. Braun’s tone turned unusually sharp on Monday as he called for a “thorough review” of the utility’s preparations for the storm and its response to it, adding that the state’s residents deserve accountability.

“NIPSCO is a monopoly utility that Hoosiers pay every month with the expectation that it will use its considerable resources to maintain its system, prepare for severe weather and restore service as quickly as possible when disaster strikes,” Mr. Braun, a Republican, said in a statement. “NIPSCO has failed to keep its end of the bargain.”

Mayor Eddie Melton of Gary has also heightened his criticism of NIPSCO in recent days, saying in a video message on Sunday that the delays are “unacceptable.”

“I know many of you are exhausted,” he said. “I know many of you are frustrated, just like myself.” He also acknowledged that their daily lives have “been turned upside down.”

The utility said on Monday that it was working around the clock to restore power, including bringing in “hundreds of crews and thousands of mutual ***istance personnel from across the country” to rebuild damaged infrastructure. It added that “more than 2,000 NIPSCO and contractor workers have been working to support restoration efforts.”

The widespread outages stemmed from unusually powerful winds that hammered Gary on Aug. 11 and descended as a derecho, a group of intense thunderstorms, traveling from eastern Iowa across Northern Illinois and Chicago and into Indiana. The strongest gust recorded in Gary during the storms reached 99 miles per hour, comparable to a Category 2 hurricane.

More than 60 percent of NIPSCO’s electric customers were left without power after the storm.

As another workweek dawned without electricity in homes and businesses, residents of Gary said the delays had become intolerable. Many people said they were exhausted and frustrated, with little money left for food, bills or gas to run their generators — if they had them at all.

Sharon Dickerson, 73, remembers the blizzard of 1967 that paralyzed Chicago and northwest Indiana for days. The power outage that she is living through right now, she said, is far worse.

Like thousands of her neighbors, Ms. Dickerson is spending each day consumed by basic survival: finding a hot meal, shuttling friends to nearby towns for insulin and other prescriptions, and looking for a place to power her phone, a lifeline during what she calls a “disjointed” disaster response in Gary.

“This is the first disaster that I’ve seen that’s really taken over,” said Ms. Dickerson, a retired social worker.

With thousands of people still without power Monday, many in Gary said they were worried about simmering mental health crises among residents who were feeling desperate and forgotten.

“People are having emotional breakdowns. They can’t get their medication, they can’t get food, they can’t get gas,” said Akili Shakur, a Gary resident who was outside City Hall on Monday, calling on the mayor’s office to hold a town hall for residents.

Kerwin Olson, the executive director of the Citizens Action Coalition, a utility watchdog in Indiana, said that NIPSCO has had a poor reputation with consumers for decades.

That reputation was built on complaints about long wait times when calling customer service, he said, and rising utility costs in recent years. Indiana residents also have criticized the utility’s investment in data centers, which they say will drive up their bills even more. NIPSCO has the highest rates of any utility in Indiana, records show.

“The skepticism and distrust and dislike of NIPSCO is very, very real and has been for a long time,” Mr. Olson said. “Even before these outages, there was growing resentment.”

Those exiting the highway into downtown Gary on Monday morning saw only some traffic lights that were lit, forcing drivers to navigate many blocks with caution.

Whether residents have their power back or are still waiting, many said that their biggest questions were about what comes next and that they were growing frustrated by the lack of answers.

“I’ve had to rely mostly on Facebook to get any information,” said Sandy Upshaw, 59.

She first heard her power would be restored more than a week ago and was given two more estimated repair dates before her lights finally cracked back to life late Saturday.

“That was the first day in almost two weeks I had real sleep,” said Ms. Upshaw, who lost her insulin and her food when her fridge stopped working.

Inside the Hudson Campbell Sports and Fitness Center, more than 120 people sheltering there were similarly wondering what would happen as they awaited power, repairs to rental housing or answers on how to repair their home’s tattered roof.

Richard Ostrich, a volunteer chaplain with the Red Cross from California, noted that only six people had left the shelter since it relocated there last week from a smaller facility.

He sought to re***ure residents that NIPSCO was making progress. He has gone out to photograph linemen at work, returning to the shelter to show people that crews were working on the damage.

Still, he said residents were frustrated over the outage and over not getting more information.

“They’ve had enough,” he said.

Amy Graff contributed reporting.