Multiple homes lose power again in East Chicago, Indiana, as fire breaks out

On Tuesday morning, multiple homes were without power in East Chicago, Indiana — again.

Along with other large parts of Northwest Indiana, East Chicago was hit with power outages following a wicked storm that blasted through the area a week ago Tuesday.  Some areas have remained without power ever since that storm.

In East Chicago, some neighbors said they got lucky and didn't lose power during the storm last week, but lost it Monday night. Others were plunged into darkness and got their power back, only to lose it again.

As of early Tuesday morning, more than 5,000 people in East Chicago were back in the dark.

This came as video posted to social media showed a large fire near 149th Street and Railroad Avenue on Monday night. Residents in the area said NIPSCO power equipment was burning.

A gas smell was noticeable Tuesday morning near the scene of the fire, and NIPSCO crews put up barricades and asked CBS News Chicago's crew to move back one block. Before that, CBS News Chicago was able to shoot video of a charred utility pole on Railroad Avenue.

The power company's media team confirmed no one was injured in the fire Monday night.

"It was just fire everywhere with fire all over the ground. Like, you would think there's gas on the floor because it was lit up," said witness Tatyanna Allen. "It looked something like a movie, something I've never seen before."

Allen said she ran outside after hearing a boom. The noise came after the lights at her grandmother's house flickered three times, and then shut off completely.

Allen said it took firefighters a while to get the situation under control.

Witnesses said their lights started to flicker, and they heard a loud boom before the fire broke out.

The NIPSCO media team has not commented about what went up in flames Monday night, or how it happened. NIPSCO also has not confirmed whether this fire was the cause of the new East Chicago power outages.

Witnesses in East Chicago believe an electrical utility pole went up in flames following a possible transformer explosion.  

NIPSCO linemen were hard at work at the scene before dawn.

They focused their efforts on equipment several feet away from the burnt utility pole.

At 1 a.m., the East Chicago Fire Department returned to the scene.

Some residents were upset because they lost power last week and got it back, only to lose it again. 

Meanwhile, CBS News Chicago crews visited Dyer, Indiana, farther south on Monday, and there were other problems aplenty — including cracked power poles, busted transformers, and a lot of frustration.

Leaders and some residents said they haven't seen any crews repairing power poles and downed lines in the week since the storm hit.

Town Manager David Hein said half of the town is still without power, and he's concerned about the town's infrastructure, like their waste water treatment plant, which has been running on a generator 24 hours a day since they lost power.

"Right now, we're running complete to capacity, because our backup generator is sufficient to run the treatment plant," he said. "The next several plans don't allow us to be at full capacity, which is what we're really concerned about. So, we're really hoping to work with NIPSCO to get some kind of relief to our power situation here."

Dyer officials were asking for more communication and more transparency from NIPSCO

NIPSCO said they have four outages in Dyer that they need to repair first. They expect full restoration by the end of Wednesday.

In Gary, Indiana, on Monday, long lines of people were seen waiting for fresh food, cold water, and ice. A total of 27,000 homes there were still without electricity from last week's storms as of Monday.

NIPSCO said the majority of its Northwest Indiana customers will get power restored by Tuesday night. But Gary is not on that list.

Gary Mayor Eddie Melton said some large service areas were still undergoing damage assessment as of this week.

"It really is the size and the scope of the damage," said NIPSCO chief executive officer Vince Parisi. "It really hit our transmission system, our distribution system, so we really have to repair, really, across the entire footprint to get customer service back on."

Parisi spoke before the fire in East Chicago, which was captured on video by several people.

Meanwhile across Northwest Indiana, outage numbers went the wrong way for a while early Tuesday, climbing from 92,000 at 5 a.m. to 97,000 by 9 a.m. The numbers have since gone back down.

The latest update from NIPSCO said some residents of Munster and Highland, Indiana, may need to wait another week until their lights are back.