Wanted to document this event for posterity’s sake. This is what I experienced, on the outside edge looking in to the areas that had it far worse.
It’s been over 3 weeks now since Northwest Indiana was hit with a major weather event. Lately the summer storms have brought strong winds, and heavy rain. But nothing prepared us for what hit on August 11th.
For me it was a typical day, my daughter was getting ready to go to work to start her shift at 10:30. By 10 am, it was dark and storming, the winds were bad, but honestly, I had seen worse. We had the weather on the TV, and prepared to go to the basement if needed. By 10:15 am, our power went out, which was a bit of a surprise. There was no thunderclap, no vibrant lightening show, just the wind whipping the rain sideways against the windows. The lights were on, and then they weren’t.
Liv’s manager called her and told her to come in later, since the whole Walmart store was being evacuated to the back and taking shelter. We could hear the storm sirens from the areas around us, eventually we heard the one from our town. But the radar tracked the storm’s path passing just south of us, so we never made it to the basement ourselves. The storm came and went, and left us in the dark.
A few hours later, the reports were coming in with devasting photos from the towns all around us. Ben and Josh had been in the city when the storm hit, and on their way home, trying to find somewhere to eat, they drove through Munster and couldn’t believe the destruction along one of the main roads. Ben pulled out his camera and took video and photos.
On Facebook, people were posting about power outages, traffic lights being out, and gas stations without power. Later in the day, were reports of people waiting in long lines 70 cars deep to get gas from the few stations that still had power.
Then came the number that measured the scale of it: 330,000 people without power. Our county alone had 95% of residents in the dark. NIPSCO, our power company, called it the largest power outage in company history, which made it difficult for them to provide solid timelines of when the power would return.
Then the cause: a derecho, with straight line wind gusts reaching 80 to 100 mph in some areas. Never heard of such a thing, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, it decided to bring along with it about 6 tornadoes.
By the late afternoon, I needed to start thinking about saving the food in our fridge and extra freezer. I sent Ben to get several bags of ice for our large cooler, thinking surely the power would be on the next day, maybe the following. Especially since only a small portion of our town was without power. We weren’t dealing with downed trees on power lines. My two sons live 2 blocks over, they had power, my sister on the other side of town, had power.
Each day, I checked the NIPSCO power outage map. Only about 800 customers were affected in our town of 4,600 people. We were able to charge our devices at my son’s apartment which saved us! Also, our streetlights stayed on as well. Which helped shine light into our home during the night, so it wasn’t completely pitch dark, which I am so grateful for, that would have freaked me out a bit. I had battery operated lights and motion sensing lights, which usually light our cabinets and pantry. I put those in the kitchen and bathroom. By the late evening of day 2, Josh brought me a portable power station big enough to run my laptop and wifi, which I named Sparky, and it came in clutch, allowing me to keep working through it all.
Late Friday night a little after 11 pm, Josh was here talking with me and Liv in the living room, when the TV suddenly flickered on and off. Me and Liv immediately looked at each other, she jumped up and ran to turn the light on. Then proceeded to turn ALL the lights on. Hallelujah! The first thing I turned on was the AC! Four and a half days without power, I never had to deal with anything like that in my lifetime. But I’m grateful that was the extent of what we endured; God had been looking out for me and gave us a breeze those four days, so the heat never got unbearable. So many people had to deal with so much more, including my brother and his family. He had some damage to their home along with losing power, but he had generators to help them get through.
Unfortunately, the ice in the cooler was a futile effort, we ended up throwing everything out. I only purchased a few groceries over the weekend, didn’t want to restock just yet, as the towns surrounding us still had significant outages.
Then Monday night, a transformer exploded and caught fire about five miles away in the next town. Our power was still on, so I didn’t think it would affect us. Buuuuttt I woke up Tuesday morning to no power. . . again! The fire caused enough damage that everything had to be replaced, likely due to an error on NIPSCO’s part. This time around, the number without power in our town jumped to over 2000. NIPSCO worked on it for 2 days, and our power was restored. I didn’t bother with getting ice this time around. I had restocked so little, and I learned that the ice wasn’t really buying us anything but the illusion of doing something. My sons and my sister, once again, never lost power at all.
Things are starting to get back to normal in most areas, though some residents were without power for 12 to 14 days straight, in the dark and the heat. Within days after the storm, the area had thousands of linemen come from other states to help. Our area was declared a state of emergency which activated the National Guard and FEMA to help with restoration and recovery process.
Every day it seems like we’re living in an alternate timeline. Add in the stress of rising costs on everything, and when nature piles a disaster on top of that, it’s easy to feel hopeless. But even through all the destruction here, and the frustration of trying to get by without power, there were constant, quiet stories of neighbors helping neighbors, strangers helping strangers, people showing up simply because it mattered. It was a relief to be reminded that the human spirit still prevails. That gives me hope.
“It’s only during a storm that a tree knows how stong it is.” – Matshona Dhilwayo
Photo Cred: @bendoesmedia
