CHICAGO – Storms that swept through a day earlier left tens of thousands of residents across northwest Indiana and the Chicago area without power Tuesday morning.
What we know:
Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) reported around 10:30 p.m. Monday that roughly 49,000 customers had lost power. The most heavily affected communities included Cedar Lake, Chesterton, Crown Point, Gary, Hobart, La Porte, Michigan City, Merrillville, Portage and St. John.
By Tuesday morning, more than 28,000 customers were still without electricity. Crews continued working to restore service while dealing with broken poles, damaged equipment, and downed trees and power lines.
In the Chicago area, ComEd reported more than 18,000 outages as storms moved through Monday afternoon. By 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, crews had reduced that number to about 1,500 customers still without power.
At O’Hare International Airport, rainfall reached 0.92 inches on Monday. That pushed the monthly total to 7.01 inches, making this April the eighth-wettest on record, according to FOX Chicago’s Mike Caplan.
What we don’t know:
Officials have not yet determined how long it will take to fully restore power to all impacted customers.
What they’re saying:
NIPSCO said crews are working “as safely and quickly as possible” to assess the damage and bring power back online. The utility also urged residents to keep at least 30 feet away from downed power lines and to treat every wire as if it is live.
In addition, a school district in Cedar Lake shifted to e-learning on Tuesday due to the outages.
“Due to widespread outages throughout the district, ALL schools will be closed for tomorrow, Tuesday, April 28th. This will result in an eLearning day. Students will have a week to complete assignments, as we understand there are many still without power. Thank you,” the district said in a statement on their website.
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