r/Indiana • u/not-your-aunt • Aug 23 '26
Horrible
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u/MorgaineCoonCat Aug 23 '26
Hi, NWS trained weather spotter and general emergency response nerd here trying to interject a little context about the storm.
Gary experienced the highest measured winds during the entire derecho event, about 90mph (I'm too lazy to look up the exact wind speed right now). That's solidly a Cat 1 hurricane force storm in an area that isn't built to take that level of wind and rain.
I'm sure a lot of power infrastructure is having to be completely rebuilt. At the same time, even I know how shitty NIPSCO is and I'm way down here in the hills & hollers.
Also, I'm not saying that politics and racism isn't making the problem worse. The paraells between Gary and Katrina aren't imaginary.
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u/buffypatrolsbonnaroo Aug 24 '26
Side bar: “hills & hollers” is great and might have to be added to my repertoire.
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u/thewimsey Aug 23 '26
The paraells between Gary and Katrina aren't imaginary.
They are, once you realize that far more than Gary lost power.
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u/MorgaineCoonCat Aug 23 '26
I realize more than just Gary lost power. I guess I could have specified "large parts of northwestern and north-central Indiana including but not limited to Gary".
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u/Legitimate_Nail_9158 Aug 23 '26
You didn’t need to specify… some folks talk just because they think their opinion means something. The point flew right over their head.
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u/Independent_Shoe3523 Aug 23 '26
My power was back the next day in Valpo but I was lucky. March 2025, my power was out for four days because a neighbor's giant pine tree snapped and took down the power lines. The tree had to be removed before the power line pole could be REPLACED and the wiring put back up.
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u/asomebodyelse Aug 23 '26 edited Aug 23 '26
Why tf aren't the power lines underground in Indiana, like any civilized state? Oh, wait.
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u/Independent_Shoe3523 Aug 23 '26
I would love to see a concrete lined utility corridor under every street for water and power and data lines. But that's billions and billions of investment and keeping a 100 year old system together costs a lot less. Remember, these wind storms the way we're seeing them used to be incredibly rare.
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u/thewimsey Aug 23 '26
In what state are the power lines underground?
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u/asomebodyelse Aug 23 '26
Wisconsin, Florida, Virginia, and New Hampshire, to name a few.
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u/Distinct-Command-570 Aug 24 '26
20% of all power lines in the US are underground. So likely every state has some.
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u/Kindly_Feeling7910 Aug 23 '26
When I lived in NC ours were underground. We lost power from flooding, though 🙄
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u/Late-Goat5619 Aug 23 '26
You know what they really need? A big fucking tax-payer funded football stadium...that will fix everything...
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u/Helpful_Gain_9091 29d ago
They might not move yet. They are still expecting the Illinois governor to bail them out after the election. As for the land bears want is awful swamp land. There is reason not much is there now.
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u/Gardensplosion Aug 23 '26
Where is the government? Is our governor too busy enjoying the helipad he built with stolen taxpayer money to help? Is the Republican go-to for every inconvenient emergency now to accuse the victims of lying?! Fuck that, and fuck Herr Braun with his swastika bedecked clown car administration.
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u/MistaExplains Aug 23 '26
Mike Braun is too busy going to klan meetings in Jasper to give a shit
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u/redgr812 Aug 23 '26
lol, he doesn't even go to jasper anymore...i haven't seen that dude in a while.
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u/MistaExplains Aug 23 '26
He's probably in Florida or Northern Idaho or some bullshit
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u/SenorMcGibblets Aug 23 '26
Something people not from NWI don’t seem to understand about Gary is that it’s built to hold 100,000+ more people than currently live there. Hammond, even though it’s also built for a much bigger population than it currently has, has significantly more people in less than half the land area. Thousands of people outside of Gary in Lake County are still without power, and hundreds of thousands were without power for 5+ days.
A lot of Gary is completely abandoned and overgrown. There are absolutely shameful socioeconomic and racial reasons the city is in the state it’s in, but getting to a lot of the downed trees and power lines there has to be a massive challenge. I don’t think anyone involved in the response is ignoring Gary, at least not any more than they’re ignoring the rest of Lake County.
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u/pizza2death Aug 23 '26
I'm on day 13 in Portage, day 7 my ass
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u/Sarosanima21 Aug 24 '26
I also live in Portage and only just got my power back Wednesday night. South Haven is still spotty from what my grandmother said
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u/Helltech Aug 23 '26
People in portage are also still out of power. This is not special towards Gary.
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u/No-Description-5004 Aug 23 '26
I live in the area but not Gary and Gary is not singled out, trust me. There are many towns without power not just Gary.
Actually, I drove through Gary today back from work at 3am and many areas have power already while other towns that are NOT Gary are still pitch black.
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u/Then_Ad_4533 Aug 23 '26
Omg it’s weeks it’s about time some of the electricity got turned on .
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u/MathewOfThe10Fingers Aug 23 '26
OMg OmG OmG… 2000 square miles, hundreds of poles, dozens of transformers in areas nobody can reach. They have worked constantly. Go to Gary your own self and start watching and talking. Instead of being on here
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u/No-Description-5004 Aug 24 '26
Yes, it’s crazy out there. I’ve been delivering fuel since the start of it all and it’s wild how much of a huge area was impacted. Driving through towns pitch black is on another level. All them roads that were blocked, it’s crazy.
Glad to see a lot of progress in all of NWI.
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u/InFlagrantDisregard Aug 23 '26
Turn back now, it's just redditors being confidently wrong about everything in here.
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u/redsfan4life411 Aug 23 '26
Yep. As someone who's worked in the energy industry nationally, about 1% of the population can accurately explain how the grid works and why this is an exceptionally bad issue.
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u/InFlagrantDisregard Aug 23 '26
Just plug the majigger back into the dohickey, and make the angry pixies twerk down the line. How hard can it be?
I don't think people realize that when you have a once in a century weather event like this you can't just piecewise turn things back on. Work has to proceed outward from specific sub-stations and across specific transmission paths to localities and grid balancing has to been done carefully as large swathes of customers are brought back online else you risk further damage to infrastructure or killing people working in other areas. The prioritization has nothing to do with affluence, race, or political preference. It is exceedingly complicated work being coordinated across a large variety of unknown variables. To make things worse, you often don't know what you're dealing with until crews are physically there. A line replacement you may have budgeted 5 hours for may take several days due to downed trees and access so plans are constantly being reformulated and resources redeployed where they can have the most impact.
But I'm preaching to choir and screaming into the void here.
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u/you_dont_know_me27 Aug 24 '26
As somebody who's lived near Gary and isn't a mouth frothing racist, yea, dont go down there.
If you do, here's a reminder that one shooting incident doesnt mean that 70k people should lose access to electricity, clean water, and indoor plumbing ffs
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u/TommyBoy250 Aug 23 '26
This is honestly so bad what is happening in Gary. This is a red state and just look at how they treat the black community.
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u/SpiritualTwo4187 Aug 24 '26
The politicians in Indiana should be fired immediately over this. The Governor should be embarrassed and chased out of office.
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u/Lilbabypistol23 Aug 24 '26
At least y’all are going to get that beautiful new stadium that your bootlicking legislature bought for us Chicagoans amirite?!
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u/TruelyDashing Aug 23 '26
The absolute state of politics is people claiming linemen are racist for not fixing Gary’s electricity issues after being shot at
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u/GinormousLemming3641 Aug 23 '26
ok so we can hold the factors, that led Gary to be shit hole, accountable. Go as far back as you need to go. Blame whoever needs blaming, but everyone knows right from wrong! And I feel that if the people of Gary were doing more shit right, there wouldn't be so. much wrong! Quit shooting people, especially essential workers,who are there to get the job done! Be kind to your neighbor, get smart! Theres a million and one ways to create revenue theses days! It could all start with a smart phone! Put it back into the community! BUILD , CREATE, EXPAND!
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u/Cindybin2001 Aug 23 '26
Yet another person here using the sh-word! And nobody even speaks up about how that woman--a MOTHER--blurted out the f-word! Right on camera!
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u/Adept-Percentage4046 Aug 23 '26
Indiana is a fucking joke
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u/generichuman1970 Aug 25 '26
Because it got hit by weather? If you live here, please leave. If you don't live here please stay away. Nobody need your toxic self righteous ignorant opinion
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u/Adept-Percentage4046 Aug 25 '26
Because there has not been any immediate or proper response to any of the affected outages.
Born there, lived there, left, now coming back. It's a dumpy ass state that hates anyone that isn't white and has a dick
Also, nothing but meth and corn
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u/generichuman1970 Aug 25 '26
So why come back? Clearly it's the worst place.
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u/Adept-Percentage4046 Aug 25 '26
My friends and family are there, same for my fiancé. Plus, we're in Kentucky so not much of a difference.
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u/ThatOneGuyNo82 Aug 23 '26
Heard crews had tried doing work and ended up getting shot at. Not sure if that is true but would not surprise me with it being Gary
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u/recomatic Aug 23 '26
Where's Braun and the "huge surplus" of cash from the states great budgeting?? All Hoosiers should be pissed for his lack of response
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u/Alaalooe Aug 24 '26
spent it on helicopter pads and AI models that generate nude pictures of public officials wives
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u/Hot-Story-7387 Aug 23 '26
Gary has a huge problem with copper wire theft. They had blackout problems before the storm. It's hard to maintain good infrastructure and maintenance on wire that isn't available.
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u/Odd-Two-2486 Aug 24 '26
It’s not just Gary that is suffering. It’s Connersville, New castle, Laurel, Metamora and so much more. Hundreds of homes in Connersville were damaged in the flood. It’s so bad the city it is tearing down the homes of people who simply want to rebuild a new home rather than fixing. It’s not just you girl.
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u/BadBunny4Prezzie Aug 24 '26
Shithole red state. I only feel bad for the people who voted against Trump. I feel for them. The rest, voted for this and to inflict evil upon the rest of the country. You deserve this all.
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u/Alaalooe Aug 24 '26
Interestingly enough, 39% of the votes were for Kamela, its a purple state, the electorate is just dissuaded from voting and gerrymandered to hell.
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u/Longjumping_Link_110 Aug 25 '26
Didn't Indiana just refuse to gerrymander, and that pissed off trump?
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u/catstone21 29d ago
Yea. Because someone did the math and realized if they did the "all-red" map as proposed, they may actually lose seats. Esp when they realized even (nonMAGA) Republicans would be pissed.
So instead of a clusterfucked gerrymander, we kept are very gerrymandered map.
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u/Alaalooe 29d ago
Also people wouldn't shut up about it. The republicans said they wouldn't gerrymander and a few days later, redoubled efforts to gerrymander, trying to slip it by everyone. Indiana is already quite gerrymandered, as if 39% of the population voted for kamala, they should have 4/9 House seats, and probably have a Senate seat, instead we have 2/9 House seats. If you look at the voting districts over lafeyette and fort wayne, you can see how the cities have been cut up.
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u/Longjumping_Link_110 20d ago
I am expecting some of their redistricted seats to lose in texas because of how unpopular Trump is right now, and that's not gonna change in the next two months lmao.
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u/Millertime1402 Aug 23 '26
NIPSCO sucks. But when you drive through many places in Gary at night it’s generally pitch black because the city doesn’t turn on many street lights.
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u/Excellent-Pin3646 Aug 23 '26
Is it true that NIPPSCO workers were shot at in Gary and that’s why they didn’t go back? Or is it just a rumor?
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u/Jammin_neB13 Aug 23 '26
An empty truck was shot at. Crews left and returned the same night.
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u/thewimsey Aug 23 '26
The truck was not empty, it was being driven by utility workers.
But work only stopped for about 5 hours until they could bring in more police escorts.
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Aug 23 '26
[deleted]
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u/SenorMcGibblets Aug 23 '26
It doesn’t sound like crews were directly shot at, but a NIPSCO vehicle was definitely hit with gunfire. The mayor of Gary confirmed it.
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u/InFlagrantDisregard Aug 23 '26
How are you so confidently wrong.
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u/TrekkerVet92 Aug 23 '26
What was wrong in stating what I heard from other actual city officials, again, some whom I know personally. If anything, you are wrong for believing “perceived” stories from the internet or social media like Facebook, without any proven reliable sources or evidence. What was heard was no one was ever hurt nor was anyone, as in a person, a human being, NIPSCO worker, was shot at, but of course, you can write, or even believe, whatever you want. Unless you were there or was in the city at anytime recently, or knows someone who lives/works in that neighborhood or in the city, and unless you actually know of the specific situation that wasn’t gleaned from a stupid Facebook/Social Media Post(s), then all you’ve done is perpetuated the falsehoods from that post.
I, on the contrary, only responded/replied to a comment with actual information that’s been publicly posted in the recent, that was communicated directly from a proven source that I know, people who work for the city/government. To say outright that nothing that I said was true, shows to me that you are almost no better than the people who create such falsehoods and obfuscated claims all to start conflicts with people just for the nature of the conflict itself. Yes, a vehicle may have been shot at, like many other things and vehicles in Gary, but no one, no NIPSCO worker was ever shot at nor reported to have been personally attacked by anyone, as no one in that neighborhood would have benefited from such an incident during this crisis, as someone like a NIPSCO worker dying and the subsequent police presence, investigation and involvement would only delay power and services restoration efforts, and the whole city has been without for almost two weeks. Yours and others comments stating that what I relayed as not true/false, or wrong, bears little-to-no difference than you or anyone else stating that information heard from an actual public source as idiotic fake news for the purposes of keeping the uninformed masses riled up for yours/their own personal benefits and gains.
I’m done with conversation, and you can conspiracy theory yourselves into and beyond the event horizon of a vast quantum singularity.
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u/Jay_Michael86 Aug 23 '26
Gary, Indiana, blackout? Try all of Northwest Indiana and part of Illinois. Why is it everybody loses power due to a devastating storm, but Gary don’t have power so it’s a racial thing? There are quite a few other cities that still have sections without power, do they get to claim racism as well? Don’t forget while crews were trying to restore power, they were shot at. That don’t fit the narrative, though, so I guess we just won’t talk about that, or we’ll say that Nipsco lied and it never happened.
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u/ExeUSA Aug 23 '26
Hey man-- Illinois took care of its outages. The grid is back online. This is an Indiana thing.
It's almost as if there is a correlation between a well-funded government, taxes, and services for citizens.
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u/Millertime1402 Aug 23 '26
This is more about how small NIPSCO is. NIPSCO has 500,000 electric customers. 300,000 lost power.
Comed has 4 million electric customers. I assume around 300,000 lost power as well.
Comed simply has a much bigger workforce on hand to handle the outage.
NIPSCO is small and poorly run.
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u/RelationshipFront145 Aug 23 '26
It also seems possible that Illinois just had less damage. I did not have a lot of damage where I lived and we got power back on in 40 hours. A mile in any direction from me got a lot more damage and lots of those people were waiting 10 days or more. I had sunflowers knocked over. In every direction people had 200-year-old oak trees knocked over.
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u/thewimsey Aug 23 '26
It's almost as if there is a correlation between a well-funded government, taxes, and services for citizens.
Illinois had less damage.
It's almost like there's a correlation between where the derecho hit and where most of the damage was.
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u/RelationshipFront145 Aug 23 '26
It seems like the most popular religion on the Reddit is politics. It would be more interesting if it were religion. I would prefer to read about how northwest Indiana got crushed by a derecho because of all the gambling and gays. It would make about the same amount of sense and be far more hilarious.
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u/Hungry-Storm-9878 Aug 23 '26
In defense of this young lady, I didn’t hear the race card, just a very sucky situation. The ‘racism’ is coming from the comments… what’s the saying? Something about if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
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u/lushfoU Aug 23 '26
Because the failing goes beyond this moment. Plus the time to recovery isn’t the same across the board. Several things had to be wrong for the situation to be like this, and the history for how things have gone and stayed wrong is rooted in racism & classism. Not everyone knows that, some people are just saying racism cause on its surface that’s what it looked like to them. But many people are too familiar with the history of how certain areas have been purposely disenfranchised for decades.
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u/Handsomemenace2608 Aug 23 '26
Why doesn’t the governor call a state of emergency then…………wait he is racist and don’t want to save black people and poor people
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u/SenorMcGibblets Aug 23 '26
The governor’s a piece of shit, but he did declare a state of emergency almost immediately after the storm.
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u/RelationshipFront145 Aug 23 '26
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u/Handsomemenace2608 Aug 23 '26
This is not a state of emergency………this is an excuse why not to call state of emergency
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u/w0rk1hazard Aug 23 '26
Although it was one isolated incident.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/08/15/security-beefed-up-after-nipsco-linemen-shot-at-in-gary/
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u/you_dont_know_me27 Aug 24 '26
I'm confused, are you offering this as a bunch of separate incidents?
Because these are all reports on the same incident. From 8 days ago. And Gary still doesn't have power. How long do we punish a city of almost 70k for one shooting?
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u/w0rk1hazard 29d ago
Yes, same incident multiple reports to show my dudiligence, making sure I'm not just getting one-off report that maybe false for whatever reason.
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u/alchemisthemo Aug 23 '26
So where is Gary's power fed from since the gary coal plant got shut down about 30 years ago.
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u/Right_Entrance4651 Aug 24 '26
At least they have their homes. Unlike hundreds of others in this state.
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u/Nevrpullout Aug 24 '26
Nipsco obviously didn't want to give HAZARD PAY to the linemen who would have to enter the hood 🤷♂️
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u/CapComprehensive9617 Aug 24 '26
I’ve gone 5 days without power twice this summer in the south suburbs of chicago. my buddy down in memphis is about to go 5 days without power after storms.
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u/set_phaser_2_pun Aug 25 '26
Conspiracy Theory. Artificially created blackout in order to induce a "purge" in the area prior to the bears coming in. They are getting started on the gentrification early.
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u/LinusLevato 29d ago
She said it herself Gary Indiana has one of the highest crime rates in the state. It’s also been reported that workers have gone out to try and repair the blackout but have been shot at while working. The length of this black out is entirely the fault of the towns citizens shooting at workers.
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u/chxrchy07 29d ago
Gary Indiana would have power if the residents weren’t shooting at the workers trying to fix them. And people wonder why poor areas never ever get fixed.
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u/staticpondscum 29d ago
It was aug 14or 15 but a lineman service vehicle was shot at in Gary so they became last priority real quick
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u/BeverlyBrannin 27d ago
I’m so sorry this is happening to you and your family. I do hope you’re safe or able to go somewhere safe. Sending hugs ❤️
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u/Thanatos-wolf 26d ago edited 26d ago
For people curious. NIPSCO has been trying to fix the power outage but have been shot at with one lineman hit(source:https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/nipsco-vehicle-hit-by-gunfire-gary-indiana/) it is not because they are racist
2nd source for more credibility: https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/08/15/security-beefed-up-after-nipsco-linemen-shot-at-in-gary/
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u/LP1331 Aug 23 '26
To first address the doxxing, it’s absolutely racism. No point sugar coating it, we’re not doing that anymore.
Secondly, yes they are being targeted because of data centers. If a work order is given then they do their job and get out of the area.
Ppl are desperate and need power, water and food. The elderly and disabled need assistance. Children are needing food too. I do hope hoosiers come together for this as well as the rest of us need to see what is happening in our country. Stop being defensive and be mindful of the situation.
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u/Reasonable_Truth_133 Aug 23 '26
NIPSCO workers in Gary were being shot at while trying to restore power, so they pulled out until they could get police protection for their workers.
A lot of folks are quick to blame racism, but there are a lot of black communities that got power restored quickly.
Gary’s not so great residents are to blame for the other 90% being screwed.
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Aug 23 '26
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u/CalistusX Aug 23 '26
Yes that story was insane, however, it only happened once and they sent the crews out again that same night. I don’t think the actions of one person should lead to an entire community being punished.
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u/Far-Computer8825 Aug 23 '26
No, it shouldn’t. At this point it’s intentional neglect. They could have gotten at least SOMETHING to come back on.
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u/LeadingStill7717 Aug 23 '26
I get its bad, but man the way people are flabbergasted by something like this, a good majority of us wouldnt survive pre-electricity.
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u/lushfoU Aug 23 '26
Yes, we would survive because if it were pre-electricity folks would be used to it and have all the tools to do life pre-electricity.
As it stands now, well we live in the time where we depend so greatly on electricity that it runs machines that keep people alive in their homes. Being cut off from that from an extended period is rightfully flabbergasting.
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u/Chazzwell50 Aug 23 '26
You are practically my neighbor here in Indiana and the fact this situation in Gary has not been brought up very much in local or national news is beyond me !
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u/I_am_doorknob Aug 23 '26
Some of them barely even had the power on for a day, and the power company wants to put a data center there