{"id":221931,"date":"2026-08-25T15:49:47","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T15:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/getting-no-help-thousands-in-gary-indiana-still-without-power-nearly-2-weeks-after-storms-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T15:49:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T15:49:47","slug":"getting-no-help-thousands-in-gary-indiana-still-without-power-nearly-2-weeks-after-storms-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/getting-no-help-thousands-in-gary-indiana-still-without-power-nearly-2-weeks-after-storms-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Getting no help\u2019: Thousands in Gary, Indiana, still without power nearly 2 weeks after storms – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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GARY, Ind. \u2014 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.
Joetta Walker, who is 73 and has asthma, uses a nebulizer to help her breathe. But right now it\u2019s a useless piece of machinery, and she has had to rely on an inhaler to survive.
\u201cI have a nebulizer where I need to take breathing treatments,\u201d Walker said in an interview at her sweltering home. \u201cI can\u2019t do that without the electricity.\u201d
Walker said the inhaler doesn\u2019t give her the same level of relief.
\u201cI wheeze,\u201d Walker said and demonstrated. \u201cYou hear it now because I get too hot.\u201d
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.
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 <\/a>on its website.
Mayor Eddie Melton said he spoke with President Donald Trump and told him \u201cexplicitly that we needed help, that we needed resources.\u201d
Melton said he asked Trump to sign an executive order \u201cand move this thing forward so folks can start getting back to work and we start restoring Gary back to normal.\u201d
\u201cHe said that he was going to do all that he can,\u201d Melton said.
Melton said he also met with Republican Sen. Jim Banks. He hopes power for residents will be fully restored by Tuesday.
\u201cI believe a good chunk of that will be restored today, and hopefully 100% will be restored tomorrow,\u201d he said.
Melton\u2019s hopeful forecast came a day after he ripped NIPSCO for failing to completely restore electricity to his city.
\u201cTwelve days is too long for families to be without power,\u201d he said Sunday in an address <\/a>posted on the city\u2019s Facebook page. \u201cI have made it clear the current pace of restoration is unacceptable.\u201d
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\u2019s \u201cfocused on safely restoring power to all customers in every affected community.\u201d
On its website, it said it expects to restore power to all of its customers in Gary by Tuesday.
Walker said that can\u2019t happen too soon. She said she has been relying on her nieces to bring her food and charge up her cellphone twice a day. She said she has $750 worth of pork chops, spiral hams and other foods rotting in her nonfunctioning freezer and refrigerator.
\u201cAll gone, gone,\u201d she said.
At night, Walker said, she gets around the house by candlelight.
\u201cI feel hurt … because I feel like they can do better than this,\u201d she said of the power company. \u201cBut I also understand how much damage was done, and I also understand the workers have to be tired.\u201d
Another Gary resident, Dion Thomas, 40, said Monday was the first time he\u2019d seen power crews in his neighborhood. But they seemed to be struggling to turn the electricity back on.
\u201cSome people\u2019s stuff was coming on, then it went back out,\u201d he said.
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.
\u201cIt\u2019s been crazy,\u201d he said.
Since the power went out, there has been a spate of generator thefts in his neighborhood, said Calvin Boone, 44, a father of four.
\u201cThe kids running around, they stealing people\u2019s generators right now,\u201d Boone said. \u201cI think about the older people, the health for them.\u201d
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.
\u201cWe ain\u2019t getting no help,\u201d he said.
Channie Weaver got her power back overnight. But it was too late to save the food in her fridge. She said she\u2019d gone shopping right before the storms hit and estimates she lost $300 worth of provisions.
\u201cAll the food is gone. We about to go out and get something out to eat,\u201d said Weaver, 50.
Weaver said she lives with her 22-year-old daughter, Desaray Weaver, and her granddaughters, Raelynn, 2, and Riley, 1.
\u201cMan, it\u2019s been rough,\u201d Weaver said. \u201cBeing hot in the house, no air conditioning, plus my daughter \u2014 she\u2019s pregnant. But it\u2019s definitely been rough.\u201d
Weaver and other Gary residents said in interviews that they can\u2019t help but wonder whether the reason their city\u2019s power is getting restored last is that it\u2019s a mostly Black city.
\u201cI feel like we at the bottom before everybody else,\u201d she said.
Shaquille Brewster and Selina Guevara reported from Gary and Corky Siemaszko from New York City.<\/em>
Shaquille Brewster is a correspondent for NBC News.
Selina Guevara is an NBC News field producer, based in Chicago.
Corky Siemaszko is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeGARY, Ind. \u2014 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.Joetta Walker, who is 73 and has asthma, uses a nebulizer to help her breathe. But right now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":221932,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}