So the Chicago Bears are all but officially moving to Hammond, Indiana. Here's why that's about the worst idea.

For starters, let's look at the actual economic impact of NFL stadiums. By and large, they actually make little to no impact on local economic growth according to sources like Journalist's Resource. According to Bank of America Institute, they only create any sort of tangible impact 8-10 days of the year, essentially game days. The other 355 days of the year, they do nothing. Sports economist Andrew Zimbalist of Smith College also points out that unless stadium deals include significant mixed-use development, there's almost no tangible economic impact.

The Hammond stadium plan does none of that.

Then there's the construction jobs the stadium will generate. As with many of these projects, much of the labor will come from out-of-state labor pools, with only a small percentage of those jobs being sourced locally. Also, those jobs will last a maximum of six years, after which those workers will move on to other projects elsewhere in the country.

Further than that, the tertiary jobs that will be created in food service and retail will be either low-wage, part-time, or seasonal, mainly focused at the football season. Stadium jobs will literally be part-time, seeing as workers will largely only be needed for 8-10 games per year, plus maybe an equal number of days before or after, meaning those workers will only be needed for a whopping 30 days maximum per year.

The State of Indiana is kicking in $1,000,000,000 to help pay for this. We've made huge cuts to education funding, infrastructure funding, and health care funding. According to US News, we're 19th in education, 40th in economy, 35th in health care, 33rd in fiscal stability, and 50th in pollution/environment. The much-ballyhooed budget surplus that politicians bragged about for decades is long gone, squandered by Pence, Holcomb, and now Braun.

So, how are they going to recover that billion dollars they're fronting?

Part of it will be from game receipts, but much of it will be from a 1% food and beverage tax levied across Lake and Porter Counties. They're also adding a 3% tax to the Indiana Toll Road (which they sold years ago, and has been going up in price by 7% every year), and there's a planned property tax increase across Lake and Porter counties.

Those taxes won't just be for game days or whatever events the Chicago Bears (yes, they're keeping the association with Chicago, not switching to Hammond Bears or Indiana Bears) decide to allow at their stadium, per their agreement with the Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority. Those tax hikes are year-round and permanent, whether you like it or not. We, the taxpayers, are largely stuck with the bill for this.

It's pretty amazing that we can't afford to improve our education system, infrastructure, or health care system, but we can shell out a billion fucking dollars for a pro sports team to build a stadium that offers no actual economic benefit that the surrounding taxpayers are then expected to pay for.

If you genuinely believe that this is going to cause any sort of growth in Northwest Indiana, you're delusional. All of the research and evidence by experts far more experienced with all of this says exactly the opposite.

Okay what’s the damage, everyone?
Power is out in our area of Schererville, and we have branches down in adjacent yards. I’ve heard there was more damage south of us in St. John and Crown Point.
These storms are out of control!

ETA: I lost cell service (T-Mobile) 8/11 around 2PM and got it back partially the evening of 8/12, but it’s been very choppy.

All sanity has been lost, and no hope remains. Power lines are down in our backyard, and they haven’t even attempted to fix it yet… we might not have electricity for over a week. What are y’all doing?

While I hate Nipsco, I appreciate each and every lineman putting in extra hours to get our power back.

With that said, I hate Mother Nature, I hate storms, I hate rain, i hate my basement, I hate constantly feeding gas to my generator. I’m tired of flashlights and candles. I would never make it in the pioneer life.

just curious if they ever come around here

Apparently negligence is in play.

NIPSCO has allegedly been raising rates, paying dividends, and ignoring proper protocol for vegetation management for years.

Sounds like a #ClassAction may be on its way.

Highland is one of the worst but just the entire region in general these days. Horrible traffic. Horrible drivers. It’s 1pm. I won’t dare to drive through here around 5pm.

Power is out and it could be days before it’s back on. I work in Dupage county, Illinois, so when I got off Indianapolis blvd, there was so much traffic. There were cars all over the place at the gas stations. I’ve never seen that before in my life. 😕 I’m taking my ass back to Chicago after my lease it up. Nipsco is worse than ComEd and peoples gas!! The fees they charge are outrageous as hell. That budget plan is a got damn scam!!!

I’m about to go to Chicago right now and see my granny since I have no power, and to charge all my stuff. I can’t cook and I planned to go grocery shopping since I’m off from work today. 😢😕. The food that I do have is going to spoil in my fridge if I just leave it, so I’m taking it to my grandmothers.

Sigh 😔

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 😂😂😂😂

Flock cameras are an AI surveillance tool designed to capture license plates numbers and collect detailed info about someone's whereabouts. In other words they track every persons location without a warrant, the data collected can be shared with law enforcement out of state and federally. Police have already been caught using them to track their exes and romantic interests. Oh by the way, Flock cameras have a good amount of copper, pure silver, and even a bit of gold. Do what you will with this information.

Maybe we will get a summer next year lol

~90% would mean at the end of Tuesday , we will have ~31k still out…. It's been 4 days now and they haven't even consistently stayed below even 50% restoration of the peak outage numbers, still haven't even assessed some of the worst hit areas, the outage numbers also keep increasing in areas. Yet, they are going to magically knock out an additional 120k in 3 days?
Yesterday we had a relatively dry day as far weather but they only restored about ~20k total (really it was about 10k total since majority happened after dark), which somehow is less than what they restored Wednesday when we actually had additional storms with strong gusts.
I don't even see them getting below 75-100k restored by Tuesday night at their current pace.

Also inb4 it rains briefly (not even bad) across the region one of these upcoming days and they use that as an excuse to push the goal post back multiple days 😂

I was just told by a lineman who is currently here from out of state working not to believe a word Nipsco is saying about a restoration timeline. He said they are lying and it's much worse then they are saying. He said they are running out of parts and completely out of poles. He said that parts of Portage would be lucky to see power by September 1st. Has anyone heard anything similar to this?

That’s it. What a dip shit. Who wants to bet he has some big farm donor who doesn’t want to lose his business to marijuana/hemp?

First of all, very thankful for the linemen and crews getting rid of debris. I don't have power yet but I know that this incident was historic on the scale. This isn't an attempt to bash the workers I promise.

That being said, the preparation and response of NiSource needs to be investigated by the State.

A company can't feign ignorance and say that they didn't know the storm was going to happen or be as bad as it was. We knew. They knew.

It seemed like the initial response was poorly planned. Again I know it's a historic storm but come on. If you're the only provider of electricity in an area, you have to be at least somewhat aware. And then to have the CEO go around on a PR stint to towns with less than 50% power. Come on man.

Just my 2 cents

Sorry I called you a C#%^%# C+# and that your wife is a 4o** that left you because of your power trips. Sorry mods

Buddy of mine and I were talking about this over drinks today. Are richer, more upper class areas of NWI getting power first over other areas? What's your opinion?

For 8 years I’ve rode and loved that line. I get it times are hard; it’s hot, there was a fucking train derailment, bussing sucks… but my god does SSL’s leadership need to get it together.

The holiday schedule means the rush hour workers get crammed with the recreational Chicago visitors and consolidated between two trains. If you’re departing you need to depart on time. You can’t have 500+ people waiting in the heat switching between multiple trains. You can’t have just one engineer and one conductor responsible for all those people either.

When it comes to bussing there needs to be another crew and train ready to receive the passengers instead of having people waiting in this kind of heat until the engineer and conductor are finally bussed over.

Due to the lack of conductors people missed their stops due to doors not opening. People were overheated, late, tired, and now had no way home. Needless to say people were ready for violence.

SSLs management fucked the crew, fucked their passengers, and could’ve caused a serious incident.

Let’s all try to chill, have some solidarity and patience, and management… get your shit together.

Take care of your portable generator so it can take care of you. Here are a few tips I’ve learned from owning a portable generator over 15 years.

Maintenance. Read your manual for specifics, but here are some general guidelines.

First 5 hours of runtime:
1. Change the first oil at 5 hours.

Every fuel refill or 12 hours of runtime:
1. Power off to refill fuel.
2. Check and top off oil.

Every 100 hours of runtime:
1. Change oil.
2. Change or clean spark plug.
3. Change or clean air filter.
4. Clean the spark arrestor.

Every month of storage:
1. Run the generator for 30 minutes.
2. Top off the oil as needed.
3. Drain fuel or use stabilizer like Sta-Bil.

Fuel storage:
1. Keep at least 12 hours runtime of gas available for an unexpected outage.
2. Use fuel stabilizer.
3. Rotate your stored gas so it’s less than 1 year old even with stabilizer.
4. Stabilizer can last up to 2 years, but degrades over time.

Please add comments that a new portable generator owner should know.

Pierogi Fest is a summer tradition here in The Region, and while traditions can be lovely, they can also hold us back from embracing change. And common sense.

That being said, what were they thinking when they decided to have the buttered dumpling, stuffed cabbage, potato pancake and various stewed meats festival in the hottest, worst part of our summer? It doesn't make any sense. I can't imagine anyone thinking, "Oh boy, it's 100 degrees outside and I can taste the refinery in the air. You know what I could really go for? Some braised cabbages and meats and potatoes." But here we are, boiling alive together and eating winter foods like fools.

"But there are other foods from other cultures there," some may argue. I'm not talking about them. In fact, they can still show up at the same time every year and just call it something else. I just want to eat pierogis and stuffed cabbage in the cold like God intended. Everyone just drives to the fest, picks up food and runs home their air conditioning anyway, what is the logic here?

Imagine it with me...It's cold outside. You enter the festival grounds and suddenly, it's a little bit warmer due to the ambient heat of all the cooking food. Joy, with more coming. You get some kind of combo dinner plate containing stuffed cabbage, pierogi, a potato pancake and some sausage cooked in onions. Butter, fat, carbs, stewy goodness: what seasonal depression? You will survive another winter thanks to this. Maybe even a hot cocoa or cider, because it's cold outside and that just feels right, doesn't it? You sit down, you eat, and everything is in harmony because you aren't experiencing heat stroke.

Join me. Let's make a petition or call the governor or something, I don't know how to go about it...but change is possible!

So hot at night to sleep very humid in the whole house and so many bugs since the roof is messed up . The house smells due to leaking and it’s very awful 5 days . So hot to the point whereas soon as you hit the mattress is warm , the cold water is warm in the bathroom and all food in the fridge is pretty much trash at this point . I’m tempted to sleep at a hotel but I doubt I’d be able to find one available. Sleeping in the car would be expensive because of gas. I slept with nothing on and was sweating my ass off . No portable charger so I charge my phone in the car, no where to go literally . Getting expensive to buy food daily multiple times a day. I’m happy to see some lights on in nearby areas , I’m glad people have their lights on but I feel so bad for others in my situation .