Mayor of crime-ridden Gary, Indiana claims power outages are racist—utility crews trying to make repairs were shot at

As power restoration efforts continue in Gary, Indiana, with some homes going nearly two weeks without electricity following a severe storm, the city’s mayor suggested during an appearance on Don Lemon’s podcast that racism is to blame for the extended outages, with the city being majority black. 

Lemon said, “This is to me—It feels like neglect. Do you think that some of that neglect came from, comes from, or is happening—If you feel that way—it may be in part because Gary is a black working-class city?”

“Gary is the largest geographic footprint of a city that we have—not population-wise, but geographic footprint—and that was the moment that the extreme frustration came out from the public because it would appear that we're being forgotten when you don't list out the actual restoration timeframe. So that's where all of the mayhem really starts to get triggered on the ground.”

On August 11, a powerful storm blew through the area, cutting power to more than 300,000 residents in the area. The storm was classified as a derecho, a powerful thunderstorm with high winds, with Gary experiencing 99 mph winds from the storm in addition to tornadoes. Experts say the power outages extended so long due to the extensive damage caused by the storm. The storm’s powerful winds combined with already saturated soil led to a large amount of trees uprooting and falling into power lines. 

During restoration efforts, a NIPSCO vehicle was struck by gunfire in Gary. Authorities said the incident took place on Friday, August 14, with no injuries being reported. NIPSCO said that restoration efforts were being temporarily paused at that time to ensure crew members’ safety, per NBC 5.

NIPSCO’s website stated that as of Wednesday morning, restoration efforts following the August 11 storm “are substantially complete.” 785 customers were without power across NIPSCO’s service area as of early Wednesday morning, with roughly 500 of those customers being located in Gary.