Some homes and businesses in Gary, Indiana, still without power 13 days
after storms
[August 25, 2026]
By COREY WILLIAMS and LAURA BARGFELD
GARY, Ind. (AP) — Things became all-too familiar for Kimya Williams
after storms rumbled through Gary, Indiana, earlier this month leaving
big chunks of the mostly-Black city in the dark for two weeks.
The power outage reminded the 50-year-old of what she experienced in New
Orleans in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina knocked out electricity to many.
Williams’ home was one of more than 38,300 homes and businesses in Gary
to lose power from the Aug. 11 storms. She initially tried to stick it
out and stay put, but the darkness got the best of her and Williams’
left for Indianapolis to stay with her children.
“It was too triggering. It was too dark,” Williams told The Associated
Press Monday.
On Monday, one of the poorest and blackest cities in America still had
no power. The day before, Gary Mayor Eddie Melton called the pace of
restoration “unacceptable.”
“We’re at day 12 and 12 days is too long for families to be without
power, 12 days is too long for parents to worry about their children and
for businesses to lose revenue,” Melton said in an update to the
community.
Northern Indiana Public Service Co., the area’s electricity provider,
said Monday that more than 370,000 customers lost power and that more
than 364,000 have had their service restored. The remaining customers
should have power back by Tuesday.
“Our teams are assigned to outages large and small, and we remain
committed to reaching every affected customer in all of our
communities,” the company said. “No outage is being overlooked, and no
customer will be left behind as we continue this restoration effort.”
As the Indiana residents awaited restoration of their service, roughly
34,000 customers in the majority Black city of Memphis were still
without power as of late Monday afternoon, after storms swept through
the city on Saturday, according to information on Memphis Light, Gas and
Water’s website. The utility said that figure represents less than 8% of
its customers.
Some residents were comparing the situation to Gary.
Lawsuit filed after long outages
A resident in neighboring Porter County filed a lawsuit in state court
last week accusing NIPSCO of negligence and requesting a class action
for residents of Indiana who have suffered as a result. The complaint
said the utility company failed to maintain trees and other vegetation
hazards growing near its power lines, a failure that “predictably”
resulted in the recent outage and others after storms caused the
vegetation to fall on the lines.
In a written statement, NIPSCO strongly disagrees with the
characterization of their vegetation management practices and will
“vigorously defend” itself in court, the company said in a statement.
The vegetation management process is overseen by the Indiana Utility
Regulatory Commission.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun on Monday said he has directed the state
consumer advocate to petition for an investigation into NIPSCO’s
preparation for, and response to, recent prolonged power outages caused
by severe weather.
The investigation also is to look into whether the utility “adequately
maintained vegetation and cleared rights-of-way to protect its
infrastructure and whether funding approved by state regulators for
infrastructure and reliability improvements was spent as promised,”
Braun said.
Decades of disinvestment worsen weather impacts
Experts have noted that in cases of severe weather, natural disasters
and especially extreme heat, the poor are most vulnerable.
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In this photo taken from video, an attendee receives toilet paper
from a volunteer at a free community relief event for those
struggling after a nearly two-week long power outage in Gary, Ind.,
Aug. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Laura Bargfeld)
Gary, like many northern rust-belt cities, has suffered for decades
from disinvestment following the loss of population and industries.
About 55,000 of the city’s 69,000 residents are Black, with more
than 29% of the population living in poverty, according to the
Census’ 2024 American Community Survey.
The poverty rate for Indiana is about 12%.
Gary’s estimated median household income of about $40,752 was far
below the $71,959 for the rest of the state.
The more well-off a person is financially, the more options they
have when faced with severe weather and natural disasters, said
Stephen Pantano, senior vice president of market transformation for
the Urban Land Institute’s Impact Lab.
“Some people don’t have the luxury of owning a car to drive
somewhere else or having access to a place to go that’s outside of
their immediate community where there might still be power," he
said.
The problems likely are to increase as climate risks grow.
“It’s a matter of where the lightning strikes on any given day as to
which specific community is hit,” Pantano said. “Gary’s number came
up this time, but it’s going to be another city next time. And the
problem with aging infrastructure and disinvestment tends to
accentuate the impacts when they hit communities that have been
experiencing those problems for a long time.”
Residents, white and Black, await improvements
Williams, who is Black and describes herself as low-income, did what
she could to save the food in her home.
“I used my car battery as a generator,” she said. “I plugged my
refrigerator into an inverter. I learned that from Katrina.”
That was a last gasp effort. Williams, who returned from
Indianapolis after learning her power was back on Sunday, said the
food still went bad.
“My house smells like mold and mildew,” she said.
Gary’s troubles didn’t start with the storms and run much deeper
than the outages, said Erin Carreon, who is pursuing a doctorate in
social work at the University of Chicago.
She said white flight and the scaling back of jobs and closures of
steel factories contributed to decades of disinvestment in Gary.
“I grew up in Gary and social inequality was very evident to me,”
she said Monday. “Seeing how the city has been neglected over the
years has been very central to my life.”
Carreon, 40, is white and lives in the city. She also has been
without power since the storms hit.
_____
Associated Press video journalist Laura Bargfeld in Gary, Indiana,
and AP writer Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to
this story.
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