Gary in the Dark. What History Teaches Black America About Disaster, Survival and Recovery

When disaster strikes a community, surviving the storm is only the beginning. What happens in the days, weeks and years afterward can be just as important. Who gets electricity restored? Who can afford to replace spoiled food? Which businesses survive? Who receives assistance? And which families have enough resources to remain stable until normal life returns?

Those questions have become painfully real in Gary, Indiana.

On August 11, 2026, severe storms tore through northwest Indiana, bringing winds reported as high as 99 mph and knocking down trees, utility poles and power lines. The storm initially left approximately 300,000 customers without electricity. More than a week later, tens of thousands were still waiting for their lights to come back on.

Gary was among the communities hit hardest.

Associated Press reporting found that more than 20,000 Gary customers remained without electricity on August 19. NIPSCO said approximately 300 utility poles and 44 transmission poles in Gary needed to be repaired or replaced, with full restoration in the city not expected until August 25.

By August 20, residents had entered their ninth day without electricity. Schools remained closed. Families were throwing away spoiled food. Residents searched for hot meals, working Wi-Fi, laundromats and places to charge their phones. Businesses were losing income while workers faced disruptions to their jobs and childcare.

As of August 22, thousands of northwest Indiana customers were still without power.

Those are not theories.

Those are documented facts.

Understanding Who Is Being Affected

Gary's demographics make the impact of such a prolonged emergency especially important to examine.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Gary is approximately 76.2% Black. The city's estimated population declined from 80,294 in 2010 to 69,093 in 2020 and an estimated 67,289 in 2025. Approximately 33.1% of Gary residents live in poverty.

Those numbers matter during a disaster because people do not enter emergencies with equal financial resources.

One family might be able to buy a generator, replace hundreds of dollars in groceries, purchase additional gasoline, relocate temporarily to a hotel and miss several days of work without facing financial ruin.

Another family might be deciding between replacing spoiled food and paying the electric bill when service finally returns.

The storm may be the same.

The ability to recover from it is not.

That is where this story becomes larger than Gary.

History Gives Black America a Reason to Prepare

Black communities do not need conspiracy theories to understand why disaster preparedness is important.

We have history.

In a 2021 report, FEMA's own National Advisory Council identified serious problems with requirements for proving homeownership or occupancy when disaster survivors applied for assistance. The council stated that these requirements caused a disproportionate number of people in communities of color and low-income communities to be denied disaster resources.

One problem specifically identified involved heirs' property.

For generations, particularly throughout the rural South, Black families have passed property from one generation to another without completing formal deeds, wills or other documentation. A family may have occupied and maintained a home for decades, yet after a disaster, proving legal ownership can become difficult.

FEMA's advisory council reported that property-title problems had affected disaster survivors after multiple major hurricanes, including Katrina.

That gives Black families an important lesson that extends far beyond Gary:

Know what you own, and have the documents to prove it.

A deed sitting unresolved between generations may not seem urgent today. After a tornado, hurricane, flood or fire destroys a home, it can become one of the most important documents a family has.

Katrina Showed What Can Happen After Disaster

Hurricane Katrina remains one of the clearest modern examples of why Black America must pay attention not only to surviving a disaster, but also to surviving the recovery.

There is no need to claim Hurricane Katrina was created to remove Black residents.

The documented aftermath is serious enough.

Research published in Social Science Research examining long-term displacement after Katrina estimated that approximately 53,000 Black adult residents of Orleans Parish — nearly one in four — were displaced long-term from the New Orleans metropolitan area.

Researchers found substantial Black-White disparities in who was able to remain within or return to the metropolitan area.

That history teaches an important distinction.

A natural disaster does not have to be intentionally created for its aftermath to produce unequal consequences.

Homes can be destroyed.

Jobs can disappear.

Businesses can close.

Insurance can become difficult to obtain or afford.

Rent can increase.

Families can exhaust their savings.

People can relocate temporarily and discover that returning is financially impossible.

Eventually, a temporary evacuation can become permanent displacement.

That is why the Black community should study Katrina as more than the story of a hurricane.

It is also a lesson about what can happen to a community after the television cameras leave.

Gary Is Teaching Another Lesson About Infrastructure

NIPSCO has said Gary's prolonged outage resulted from extraordinary storm damage and the complexity of rebuilding damaged electrical infrastructure. The company has also rejected claims that restoration decisions were based upon the race or income of affected communities.

Those statements should be included in a fair report.

But accountability does not require an accusation of conspiracy.

If approximately 300 utility poles and 44 transmission poles in one city require repair or replacement following a storm, residents have every right to ask questions about infrastructure resilience, maintenance, emergency preparation and what improvements will be made before the next major storm arrives.

The issue becomes even more significant when residents are economically vulnerable.

Nine or ten days without electricity isn't simply an inconvenience when someone cannot afford a generator.

It can become a financial emergency.

Survival Has to Begin Before the Lights Go Out

Black communities should take that lesson seriously.

Preparedness cannot begin on the first night of an emergency.

Every household should develop an emergency plan appropriate to its circumstances.

That includes drinking water, shelf-stable food, flashlights, batteries, power banks, necessary medications, basic first-aid supplies and a plan for communicating when cellular or internet service becomes unreliable.

But survival preparation should go further.

Important documents should be protected. Families should know where their deeds, insurance policies, identification, birth certificates, vehicle titles and other critical records are located. Secure digital copies can provide another layer of protection if physical documents are destroyed.

Families should understand their insurance policies before they need to make a claim.

And relatives should know beforehand who is responsible for checking on elders, children and people with disabilities during an emergency.

These preparations cannot prevent a storm.

They can prevent confusion from becoming another disaster.

Our Institutions Must Be Prepared Too

Individual preparedness is only part of the answer.

Black churches, mosques, community organizations, neighborhood associations and businesses have historically been places where people turn during difficult times.

Those institutions can become even more effective when emergency planning takes place before the emergency.

Where can residents charge phones?

Who has generators?

Where can food and water be distributed?

Who can check on elderly neighbors?

Which businesses have refrigeration?

Who has transportation?

How will information reach residents when electricity and internet service disappear?

Gary residents have already demonstrated the importance of this type of community response. AP reporting documented community centers providing meals and charging opportunities while volunteers and organizations worked to get necessities to people who needed them.

That is community infrastructure too.

Black Businesses Are Part of Survival

The outage also demonstrates why protecting local businesses matters.

When a neighborhood business loses electricity for a week, the owner may lose refrigerated inventory, customers and revenue while rent, insurance and other expenses continue.

The owner is not the only person affected.

Employees lose hours.

Families lose income.

Residents lose nearby sources of food and necessities.

Money that normally circulates within the neighborhood disappears.

That makes economic preparedness another part of community survival.

Whenever possible, families and businesses need emergency reserves. Community organizations can develop relationships with local businesses before disasters occur. Business owners should understand their insurance coverage and maintain updated records of equipment and inventory.

Economic strength cannot stop the wind.

But it can determine how quickly a community gets back on its feet.

Political Organization Is Also Emergency Preparedness

We should also expand our definition of preparedness to include political participation.

Residents should know who represents them.

They should understand which agencies regulate their utilities.

They should attend public meetings concerning infrastructure.

They should know where public money is being invested.

They should document repeated outages and infrastructure problems.

They should understand how emergency-management decisions are made.

And when something goes wrong, communities should organize around documented facts rather than rumors.

That gives residents something much stronger than speculation.

It gives them evidence.

A politically informed community can ask specific questions, request records, attend hearings and hold elected officials, regulators and corporations accountable for the services residents pay for.

What We Know — And What We Don't

Responsible journalism requires us to draw that line clearly.

We know a severe storm struck northwest Indiana.

We know winds reached approximately 99 mph.

We know Gary suffered extensive electrical infrastructure damage.

We know tens of thousands of people throughout northwest Indiana remained without electricity well beyond the initial storm.

We know Gary is overwhelmingly Black and has a poverty rate exceeding 30%.

We know residents, schools and businesses experienced serious disruption.

We also know from FEMA's own advisory council and independent research that racial and economic disparities have existed within America's disaster-recovery system.

What we do not have is verified evidence that Gary's outage was deliberately created or prolonged to harm Black residents.

BLXCR will not turn an unanswered question into a fact.

Our responsibility is to investigate what can be documented, identify historical patterns where credible evidence supports them, and allow our readers to examine those facts for themselves.

The Lesson Is Preparation, Not Fear

Perhaps the most important lesson coming from Gary is not about conspiracy at all.

It is about readiness.

Black Americans have survived slavery, segregation, redlining, discriminatory housing practices, economic exclusion and countless other obstacles throughout our history in this country.

That history should teach us something.

We should never become so comfortable that we stop preparing.

We need emergency food and water.

We need backup power where financially possible.

We need properly documented property ownership.

We need insurance knowledge.

We need savings when circumstances allow.

We need strong community institutions.

We need Black-owned and community-rooted businesses.

We need relationships with our neighbors.

We need political organization.

And we need to know where our elderly and vulnerable community members are before an emergency occurs.

Self-reliance does not mean government has no responsibility.

We pay taxes. We pay utility bills. We have every right to expect reliable infrastructure, competent emergency response and equal treatment.

We can demand those things while strengthening ourselves at the same time.

The two ideas belong together.

Gary in the Dark

The people of Gary deserve electricity restored.

They deserve answers.

They deserve infrastructure capable of protecting their community against future emergencies.

And they deserve the same urgency that any American community should receive when thousands of families have been living without electricity for days.

But Gary should also become a conversation within Black communities throughout America.

Not a conversation built around fear.

A conversation about survival.

A conversation about ownership.

A conversation about preparation.

A conversation about political and economic organization.

And a conversation about learning from history before history has an opportunity to repeat itself.

We cannot control when the next hurricane comes.

We cannot control when winds reach 99 miles per hour.

We cannot control every flood, tornado, fire or power failure.

But there are things we can control.

Know what you own. Protect your documents. Prepare your household. Know your neighbors. Strengthen your institutions. Support your community businesses. Understand who represents you. Follow where public money goes.

And hold institutions accountable.

Because surviving the disaster is only the first victory.

The greater victory is making sure our communities are still standing after the recovery is over.

References

Associated Press — “Tens of thousands in Indiana are still without power a week after deadly storms,” August 19, 2026.Documents the prolonged northwest Indiana outage, more than 20,000 Gary customers without electricity, 99 mph winds and approximately 300 utility poles and 44 transmission poles requiring repair or replacement. Associated Press report

Associated Press — “‘Survival mode’: Indiana residents endure a ninth day without power,” August 20, 2026.Documents conditions facing residents, including spoiled food, school closures, business disruption, difficulties charging devices and community relief efforts. Associated Press follow-up report

U.S. Census Bureau — QuickFacts: Gary city, Indiana.Provides Gary's official population, racial, housing and poverty statistics, including a 2025 population estimate of 67,289, a Black population of 76.2% and poverty rate of 33.1%.U.S. Census Bureau — Gary QuickFacts

Federal Emergency Management Agency — National Advisory Council, 2021 Report to the Administrator. Documents FEMA's recognition that proof-of-ownership and occupancy requirements disproportionately created obstacles for communities of color and low-income disaster survivors, including Black families with heirs' property. FEMA National Advisory Council report

Social Science Research — “Historical exception or historical continuity? Black-White disparities in long-term displacement from the City of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina,” 2026.Examines racial disparities in long-term post-Katrina displacement and estimates that approximately 53,000 Black adult Orleans Parish residents were displaced long-term from metropolitan New Orleans. Katrina displacement research