For more than a week, Joslyn Kelly tried to keep her Gary, Indiana, restaurant running without electricity.
Kelly, the owner of J’s Breakfast Club, told Business Insider that the Aug. 11 derecho knocked out power to her restaurant and forced her to get creative just to keep serving customers.
“The lights flickered a couple of times, and that was it,” Kelly said, recalling the storm. “I ran out and had all of the customers and employees come away from the windows.”
Kelly finished the remaining orders and sent everyone home.
‘It’s Life’
But as the outage stretched from hours into days, she began taking inventory of everything at the restaurant that would have to be thrown away.
Then she realized she could still use the restaurant’s gas appliances.
“I realized I didn’t have to get rid of everything. Gas was still viable within our kitchen,” Kelly said.
She went to Menards and bought tents, portable lights and propane-fueled deep fryers and griddles. She set up an outdoor cooking station and used power banks and candles to help keep the restaurant operating.
Some of her employees also showed up to work.
“That’s life. You figure it out,” Kelly said.
But improvising could only do so much.
Kelly told Business Insider that the prolonged outage caused her restaurant to lose about 90% of its sales, costing the business roughly $19,000.
“It has been very unnerving,” she said. “Everybody’s been worried about getting the power back on.”
Kelly said the restaurant’s power was finally restored around 1 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 20 — more than a week after the storm.
She said the repeated changes to restoration estimates made the situation even more frustrating.
“Last week, we were told power would be on by Friday. Friday came, and they said, ‘You’ll be on by Tuesday.’ Tuesday came, and they said, ‘Well, you’ll be on by next Tuesday.’”
Other Business Owners Impacted
The outage has also forced other Gary businesses to close.
Shatiya Hardin told NPR that she has been unable to open her hair salon since the storm. She said residents in her lower-income neighborhood initially accepted the disruption because they were accustomed to having to get through difficult circumstances.
But after more than a week, she said patience was wearing thin.
“We’re always in survival mode in Gary,” Hardin said. “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.’ But this is the second week now.”
“It’s not OK for us to continually be in survival mode, doing the best that we can.”
Prolonged Outage
Kelly and Hardin’s experiences are playing out across Gary, where thousands of residents and businesses have spent more than a week without electricity.
The Northern Indiana Public Service Company has described the damage from the derecho as “unprecedented and widespread.”
The Aug. 11 storm brought winds of up to 99 mph, knocking down trees, power lines and utility infrastructure across northwest Indiana. The utility initially reported more than 300,000 customers lost power.
Right now, it’s about 80 degrees in Gary, Indiana. Temperatures are thankfully expected to drop slightly into the weekend, but the humidity will still be a tough thing to fight without air conditioning.
As of Friday, tens of thousands of NIPSCO customers across northwest Indiana were still without electricity. The utility has said it expects to finish restoring power in Gary by Tuesday, Aug. 25 — meaning some residents could spend nearly two weeks without electricity.
Power Outage Causing Other Problems
Residents have also reported dealing with spoiled food, difficulty charging phones and other devices, darkened streets and other problems caused by the prolonged outage. Gary schools have remained closed because of ongoing storm-related issues.
The prolonged blackout has also created concerns beyond simply keeping the lights on.
Raydia Martin, assistant director of the Flourish Community Hub at Flourish Church in Gary, told NPR that the uncertainty has taken a mental toll on residents.
“We thrive best, you know, as humans on certainty and predictability,” Martin said. “So, for something so devastating to happen so quickly, it definitely takes a toll on people mentally.”
She said residents are worried about basic questions, including where their next meal will come from and when their lives will return to normal.
“We need to have a light at the end of the tunnel,” Martin said.
Still, Kelly said the crisis has also shown her the resilience of Gary’s residents.
Her restaurant was able to continue serving limited food despite the outage, and community organizations and volunteers have stepped in to provide meals and other supplies to residents.
Additional Resources
The city has also received financial help.
Gary Mayor Eddie Melton announced Aug. 19 that Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana donated $100,000 to help residents affected by the storm.
Hometown NBA legend Glenn Robinson also donated $100,000 to the city.
And social media food influencer Keith Lee has announced plans to visit Gary on Monday to help residents and support local businesses.
For Kelly, the experience has left her thinking beyond simply getting her restaurant back to normal.
She hopes the storm forces officials and residents to think about how Gary can better prepare for the next major disaster.
“The seeds that we’re planting today are not for tomorrow. They’re for 50 to 100 years from now,” Kelly told Business Insider.
“Hopefully, this storm has created an urgency and an awareness for us to do better and be better so that our future is better.”
Atlanta Black Star reached out to Kelly and the mayor’s office for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication
