More than two weeks after violent storms wiped out power to thousands of customers, the lights and air conditioners were finally back on Wednesday for almost all residents of Gary, Indiana.
\n\nAs of Wednesday afternoon, fewer than 250 utility customers in the city of 69,000 were still experiencing outages, according to the Northern Indiana Public Service Company, known as NIPSCO.
\n\n“Storm restoration efforts related to the Aug. 11 storm and subsequent weather events are substantially complete,” the company said in an update posted to its website Wednesday morning. “While crews continue working through a limited number of individual outage cases, restoration activities have concluded across the broader service territory.”
\n\nA derecho — a storm that can produce tornado-strength winds — struck Indiana and other parts of the Midwest with straight-line winds between 70 and 100-plus mph on the morning of Aug. 11, the National Weather Service said.
\n\nIt tore down power lines and inflicted what NIPSCO called “the worst damage in known company history,” knocking out power to 80% of its customers, around 375,000. Fewer than 250 outages remained Wednesday night in the rest of the company’s service area.
\n\nIn addition to the derecho, there were also tornadoes, including a…
Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/