“Corporate Greed”: Outraged Gary Locals Take Aim at Utility Over Prolonged Blackout
This story was originally published by Capital B and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. As power slowly returns to homes and businesses in Gary and across Northwest Indiana, Black faith leaders and elected officials alike are turning their focus to restoration, accountability, and solutions for future weather events. Fewer than […]
Gary residents are growing increasingly angry with their utility provider, Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO), after enduring one of the longest and most severe power outages in the city's history. As of Tuesday morning, fewer than 2,500 NIPSCO customers remained without electricity in Gary, accounting for over 70 percent of the nearly 3,500 still without service in the surrounding county.
Local Black faith leaders and elected officials have stepped up efforts to hold NIPSCO accountable for the prolonged blackout and its aftermath. Reverend Boise Kimber of First Calvary Baptist churches in New Haven and Hartford, Connecticut, and the president of the National Baptist Convention, has called NIPSCO's response a "man-made crisis born of corporate greed and environmental injustice." He urged the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to investigate the company's actions and spending.
The outage caused significant hardship for vulnerable populations, with many elderly residents struggling to cope with the heat without proper air conditioning. Some lost their homes, prompting Pastor Eric Boone of Tree of Life Missionary Baptist Church in Gary to open his church to provide temporary shelter for multiple families. The church has since received resources from religious leaders outside Gary, who have joined the effort for accountability.
NIPSCO has also faced a class-action lawsuit alleging that its vegetation management practices contributed to the widespread outages. The utility has denied these allegations. Governor Mike Braun has ordered state utility regulators to investigate NIPSCO's storm response and spending. Braun has also called on the utility to make residents "whole" by compensating them for their losses, emphasizing that the company should be held to its obligation to maintain its system, prepare for severe weather, and restore service quickly when disaster strikes.
As NIPSCO continues to restore power to most residents, Gary Mayor Eddie Melton has criticized the length of the restoration process, calling for immediate action to prevent future outages. He has presented a list of demands to the utility, including no disconnections for the next 60 to 90 days and no disconnect notices for residents. Boone and Kimber both hope this incident will lead to positive change in the relationship between NIPSCO and the community, moving beyond a "NIPSCO versus us" mentality.
Written by urgent.news from Mother Jones's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
