Gary storm victims fill generators at a gas station, watch DVDs in car, eat hot lunch at a school

Amid a historic power outage in Northwest Indiana that has left thousands without power for nearly two frustrating weeks, daily life for people looks like filling up generators at the gas station, passing time watching DVDs in their cars or communing with neighbors over hot lunch at a local school that doubles as a community resource center. The Chicago Sun-Times spoke with several Gary residents about their experiences as they await for electricity to be restored, debris to be cleared and life to return to normal.

Leticia Rimmer, 75, Gary

Because her apartment building has no power, Leticia Rimmer has made a makeshift home of her red Ford Fiesta for nearly two weeks.

Each day, she sits in her car listening to music, reading, doing word searches or watching old movies — “Star Trek,” “King Kong,” and “The Terminator” — on her portable DVD player. She buys sandwiches, piecemeal, and ice from the gas station to keep her water and fruit cold. Then, she goes inside to sleep once the sun sets.

Rimmer said the severe weather that hit the city was “frightening.”

“We’ve had storms, but nothing compared to what happened to us the last 10 days,” she said. “It started getting dark, and then the rain came like it was never going to stop. Trees were hanging over my car. They landed on quite a few people’s cars.”

Rimmer said she has not heard from her landlord, and the Northern Indiana Public Service Company took five days to come out to her area, but they keep delaying the date to restore electricity.

“It seems like it’s taking them forever to do anything,” she said. “Gary’s big enough to take care of all of us. There are many NIPSCO trucks. It just goes to show who comes first.”

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Daniel Sheko, 31, Gary

As he filled up plastic gas cans for his generator, Daniel Sheko gave a glass-half-full response when asked how he was coping on day 11 without power.

“It could be worse,” said the father of five, who was in a hurry to get breakfast home to his wife and four children, ranging from 5 weeks to 11 years old. “We’re still pushing through it. The lights are out, but we were able to get a generator to get some power back to the house. We’re still eating every day. I’m still going to work.”

Though the Amazon warehouse where he works lost power for a few days, it didn’t prevent him from doing his job as a driver. And he has noticed other homes nearby gradually getting their electricity restored.

“We’ve been better than most,” he said. “To the people that are doing worse, keep your head up. It’s going to get better.”

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Lavelle Taylor, 54, Gary

Lavelle Taylor hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in 11 days.

Every night since Gary lost power, he has felt the need to guard his $1,000 generator on his front porch. He said others have been getting stolen in the neighborhood.

“I’m literally sitting at my front door until 4 a.m.,” he said.

Then, he’ll shut the generator off, bring it inside and sleep for two hours until his wife and kids wake up at 6 a.m.

“If the power goes out, you don’t think, ‘My generator is out of gas,’” he said. “You think, ‘Somebody might have it.’”

Taylor said his house is the only one on the block that hasn’t had power restored. After a tree fell on his power line, utility workers told him they would fix the line; all he needed to do on his end was fix his bent weatherhead, which he took care of right away.

“They never came back,” he said.

“Every day we call them. They give us excuses: ‘It was an emergency last night.’”

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Marisol Carrillo, 39, Gary

For Marisol Carillo, working from home during a nearly two-week power outage in the city has been tricky. Sometimes her office is Southlake Mall, other times it’s a McDonald’s.

Her 3-year-old son has also had to get used to life without his iPad.

“He’s spending more time outside, which I guess that’s really good,” said Carrillo, who works for a nonprofit and lives with her 62-year-old dad, Herminio. “It’s just disruptive to everyone’s routine.”

Carillo’s more pressing issue is her yard littered with fallen trees and a power line, which the utility company still hasn’t come to fix. And in the meantime, she has been racking up additional costs, from purchasing an $800 generator to eating out more often.

“It’s frustrating at this point,” she said. “At first I was like, ‘Why aren’t people talking about this?’ Why isn’t this national news?’ But now that it’s been 11 days people are paying attention to it more.”

Carrillo also described Gary as a town that had already been abandoned and destroyed.

The storm just adds more destruction, she said.