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Pleasant Productions A powerful August 11 storm hit northwest Indiana with winds reaching about 99 mph, damaging power lines and hundreds of utility poles. Gary was one of the hardest-hit communities, and some residents remained without electricity for 11 days or longer while NIPSCO crews worked through extensive damage.The situation became a racial debate online because Gary is 76.2% Black. Some commentators described the lengthy outage as environmental racism or evidence that a predominantly Black community had been neglected. NIPSCO rejected that explanation, saying restoration depended on the severity and location of storm damage, not neighborhood demographics.There was also a serious interruption to the repair effort. On August 15, a NIPSCO vehicle carrying workers involved in power restoration was struck multiple times by gunfire in Gary. Nobody was reported injured, but NIPSCO temporarily stopped crew operations in the city while working with police on additional security. Restoration work resumed later that day.Gary has a nine-member elected Common Council, and the official city website confirms the council roster circulating online. The outage has raised legitimate questions about infrastructure, maintenance, and NIPSCO’s response, but the available facts have not established racial discrimination as the cause. The episode also became another example of how quickly major problems can be framed around race before the underlying cause has been established. #electricity #indiana #shortage