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.
But some East Chicago residents got 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.
Witnesses said their lights started to flicker, and they heard a loud boom before the fire broke out.
NIPSCO has not confirmed whether this fire was the cause of the new East Chicago power outages.
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.
Dyer was starting its seventh day without power on Tuesday, and has been relying on generators to run critical infrastructure like the wastewater treatment plant.
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.
He believes a utility electrical pole went up in flames following a possible transformer explosion.
CBS News Chicago was waiting Tuesday morning for NIPSCO to confirm exactly what happened to cause the fire, and what caused more power outages in East Chicago.
