A mostly Black city in Indiana is struggling to recover from storms that hit two weeks ago, with over 8,600 customers still without power. Mayor Eddie Melton has expressed frustration with utility provider NIPSCO's restoration pace, calling it "unacceptable" after 12 days without electricity. According to NIPSCO, they expect to restore power to all of its customers in Gary by Tuesday, but one resident, Joetta Walker, says she can barely breathe due to her asthma and relies on her nieces for daily care. Mayor Melton has spoken with President Trump, asking him to sign an executive order to aid in the recovery efforts.
Written by the local model on 2026-08-25,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
The power outages caused by storms that roared through the region nearly two weeks ago have one resident of this Rust Belt city literally gasping for air.
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resident → cause → air
Joetta Walker, who is 73 and has asthma, uses a nebulizer to help her breathe.
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her → have → nebulizer
But right now it’s a useless piece of machinery, and she has had to rely on an inhaler to survive.
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she → ’ → inhaler
“I have a nebulizer where I need to take breathing treatments,” Walker said in an interview at her sweltering home.
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Walker → have → home
“I can’t do that without the electricity.”
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I → do → electricity
Walker said the inhaler doesn’t give her the same level of relief.
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inhaler → say → relief
“I wheeze,” Walker said and demonstrated.
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Walker → wheeze → ?
“You hear it now because I get too hot.”
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I → hear → it
No other place in Indiana has suffered more as a result of those Aug. 11 storms than this mostly Black city on the southern tip of Lake Michigan, best known as the hometown of Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5.
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place → suffer → Jackson
As of Monday, more than 8,600 customers were still waiting for their power to be restored, most of them in Gary, the Northern Indiana Public Service Co. (NIPSCO) reported on its website.
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Co. → wait → website
Mayor Eddie Melton said he spoke with President Donald Trump and told him “explicitly that we needed help, that we needed resources.”
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we → say → resources
Melton said he asked Trump to sign an executive order “and move this thing forward so folks can start getting back to work and we start restoring Gary back to normal.”
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we → say → normal
“He said that he was going to do all that he can,” Melton said.
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Melton → say → all
Melton said he also met with Republican Sen. Jim Banks.
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he → say → Banks
He hopes power for residents will be fully restored by Tuesday.
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power → hop → Tuesday
“I believe a good chunk of that will be restored today, and hopefully 100% will be restored tomorrow,” he said.
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he → believe → that
Melton’s hopeful forecast came a day after he ripped NIPSCO for failing to completely restore electricity to his city.
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he → come → city
“Twelve days is too long for families to be without power,” he said Sunday in an address posted on the city’s Facebook page.
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he → say → page
“I have made it clear the current pace of restoration is unacceptable.”
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pace → make → restoration
In an email Monday, NIPSCO, the Merrillville, Indiana-based utility provider that supplies natural gas and electricity to over 1.3 million residential and commercial customers across the northern third of the state, said it’s “focused on safely restoring power to all customers in every affected community.”
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it → base → community
On its website, it said it expects to restore power to all of its customers in Gary by Tuesday.
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it → say → Tuesday
Walker said that can’t happen too soon.
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that → say → ?
She said she has been relying on her nieces to bring her food and charge up her cellphone twice a day.
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she → say → cellphone
She said she has $750 worth of pork chops, spiral hams and other foods rotting in her nonfunctioning freezer and refrigerator.
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she → say → freezer
“All gone, gone,” she said.
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she → go → ?
At night, Walker said, she gets around the house by candlelight.
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she → say → candlelight
“I feel hurt ... because I feel like they can do better than this,” she said of the power company.
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she → feel → company
“But I also understand how much damage was done, and I also understand the workers have to be tired.”
Another Gary resident, Dion Thomas, 40, said Monday was the first time he’d seen power crews in his neighborhood.
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he → understand → neighborhood
But they seemed to be struggling to turn the electricity back on.
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they → seem → electricity
“Some people’s stuff was coming on, then it went back out,” he said.
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he → come → ?
In the meantime, people have been heading to parks to cook whatever food they have left over charcoal and eat it before it spoils, said Thomas, a father of three.
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Thomas → head → three
“It’s been crazy,” he said.
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he → say → ?
Since the power went out, there has been a spate of generator thefts in his neighborhood, said Calvin Boone, 44, a father of four.
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Boone → go → four
“The kids running around, they stealing people’s generators right now,” Boone said.
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Boone → run → generators
“I think about the older people, the health for them.”
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I → think → them
Boone said that everybody has been feeling hot and miserable and that some have taken to sleeping in their cars with the engines on and the air conditioners blasting.
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conditioners → say → cars
“We ain’t getting no help,” he said.
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he → get → help
Channie Weaver got her power back overnight.
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Weaver → get → power
But it was too late to save the food in her fridge.
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it → save → fridge
She said she’d gone shopping right before the storms hit and estimates she lost $300 worth of provisions.
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she → say → provisions
…and 8 more, not listed.
