‘Survival mode’: Indiana residents endure a ninth day without power

Tens of thousands of people in northwest Indiana are entering a second week without power after a deadly storm toppled trees and power lines (AP) — Tens of thousands of residents in northwest Indiana were in survival mode Thursday as they endured a ninth day without power, throwing out spoiled food, lining up for hot meals and searching for places to charge their phones. In Gary, Indiana, schools remained closed after the deadly Aug.

11 storm downed trees and power lines. Residents turned to social media to find open laundromats and working Wi-Fi, while others sought food, diapers and cleaning wipes for low-income neighbors. Meanwhile, heavy rains in central Ohio brought flash flooding that covered roadways Thursday morning in Columbus, the state capital, where emergency crews rescued motorists from stranded cars and saved a 12-year-old boy who was swept off a bridge.

Northern Indiana Public Service Co. said 68,000 customers were still without power as of Thursday morning, the majority of them in Lake County beside the Illinois border. The utility said it has restored power to 306,500 others since Aug.

But power is not expected to be fully restored until Tuesday in some places, including Gary. Courtney Page-Tan, an Indiana University Indianapolis professor who studies community resilience, said health concerns grow each day of a prolonged outage. With many people using generators, poor ventilation can lead to carbon monoxide poisoning.

In addition, those reliant on medical devices risk having them lose their charge, while refrigerated food once safe to eat could pose health risks as it spoils. “Nine days is a long time for a community to be without power,” Page-Tan said. Residents are exhausted from days without power Shatiya Hardin, a hair stylist in Gary for 25 years, has been unable to open her salon since the storm.

She said residents in her lower-income neighborhood initially took the outages in stride. “We’re always in survival mode in Gary. And I think that’s probably why it wasn’t so much of an uproar because the first few days, it was like, ‘OK, we’re used to this ….