by Carson Gerber
(Free Press Indiana News) - The floors inside Gloria Davis’ home are warped and damaged after 10 days without power in the trailer park where she lives with her three kids and fiancé.
It’s been more than a week since her family was stuck in the dark with a now-patched hole in the roof from a fallen tree. Without air conditioning, the floor and drywall began to crack and warp in the sweltering summer heat.
After more than two weeks, electricity has been restored for nearly all of the 375,000 customers in northwest Indiana who lost power Aug. 11 following severe weather. It’s the largest outage in the history of NIPSCO, the area’s electric utility.
The number of individuals impacted is likely much higher — one “customer” could be a household with multiple people, for example.
For Davis and many others, life still hasn’t returned to normal.
‘It doesn’t feel like home’
Davis, a 39-year-old professional caregiver, said her fridge and cupboards are still mostly empty. She lost around $1,000 in food and only now can start to restock after receiving her most recent paycheck.
“It doesn’t even feel like home anymore,” she said. “Things still just feel like chaos, and I’m so tired.”
Laura Davies, a 50-year-old resident in the small town of Hanna in LaPorte County, said she lost three freezers of food during the outage that left her home in the dark for about six days.
On Thursday afternoon, she waited outside the small food pantry that’s open for three hours a week in the town of around 450 residents. Davies said she lost around $2,000 in food, including her homegrown vegetables that she freezes.
With grocery prices so high, she said she can barely afford to buy anything at the store for her family.
“We normally come to the pantry, but right now we’re really strapped,” she said. “We’re broke.”
FEMA assistance could help
Residents in Lake, Porter, LaPorte and Pulaski counties in northwest Indiana are eligible to receive individual assistance from FEMA to help cover costs like food, temporary housing or essential items. Uninsured and underinsured people can also get funding for home repairs.
In total, 21 counties were approved for individual assistance. FEMA applications opened Tuesday and can be filled out online or through the FEMA app. Gov. Mike Braun said Thursday that more than 13,000 Hoosiers have so far applied.
Davis from Valparaiso said she applied but hasn’t heard back yet. She said it’d be “amazing” to get money to fix the floors, repair the roof and cover the $1,000 bill she paid to hire an electrician to fix her breaker box and electric meter.
“I wouldn’t be so concerned, but man, my account is next to nothing from paying so much out of pocket,” Davis said. “Life has been rough for us in northwest Indiana, but I know things could be much worse.”
Outrage at NIPSCO
Even with power restored, residents in Hanna and elsewhere are angrier than ever at NIPSCO, which faces a state investigation and class-action lawsuit for its response to the outage.
Customers saw a 50% rate increase from 2023 to 2025, and the utility this month filed three more rate increase requests with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. NIPSCO says the increases are routine adjustments, not formal rate hikes. The utility remains the costliest investor-owned provider in the state.
In an email to some customers, NIPSCO said it’s allowing a delayed payment on estimated bills this month and waiving late fees on that bill for a month.
“We hope this flexibility provides some peace of mind as you focus on recovery and take care of what matters most,” the email said.
The email wasn’t enough for Steven Ryan, a 33-year-old Army vet in Hanna who lost power for two weeks. He joined the class-action lawsuit alleging NIPSCO failed to invest in tree and vegetation maintenance that contributed to the prolonged outage.
He also hired an attorney to argue he shouldn’t have to pay his recent electric bill that’s doubled in recent years due to NIPSCO’s rate hikes.
“I’m not paying my $800 electric bill,” Ryan said. “I’ve been out of power for half the month. They failed everybody.”
Davies said she lives on a strict budget in order to pay her bill, which sometimes costs over $1,500. Now, she’s not sure how she’s going to afford it as she spends hundreds of dollars to restock all her lost food.
“It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Davies said. “You got to pick your battles and who you’re gonna pay on what week.”
Carson Gerber wrote this article for Free Press Indiana News.
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