Northwest Indiana officials criticize NIPSCO storm response, call for changes
Northwest Indiana residents and officials on Tuesday criticized Northern Indiana Public Service Co.’s response to devastating storms last month and called for a slate of changes during the upcoming legislative session.
Strong winds from the Aug. 11 storms caused the worst damage in NIPSCO’s history, knocking out power to 375,000 customers, largely in Lake and Porter counties. Some homes and businesses did not regain electricity for two weeks.
“There seemed to be a failure in communication,” Griffith Police Chief Albert Tharp told lawmakers during an interim legislative committee meeting that was repurposed into a hearing on the storm response.
Tharp said town leaders were not receiving regular meetings with NIPSCO for at least a week after the Aug. 11 storms and that the meetings stopped before all customers had been reconnected. Residents who called NIPSCO were repeatedly told their outages were not showing up in company logs.
When the town brought in state staff and prison labor to help clear alleyways of debris and provide access to utility equipment, Tharp said NIPSCO sent “different workers than were planned and the management there didn’t really have a game plan.”
“Let’s do better with our execution,” Tharp said.
NIPSCO cites storm severity
NIPSCO President and Chief Operating Officer Vince Parisi said the utility was “prepared for what we understood was coming,” but weather forecasts “consistently underestimated” the eventual severity of the storms.
Parisi said the first indication that wind speeds would exceed 100 miles per hour came just 11 minutes before the storm crossed into NIPSCO’s territory.
Thousands of trees were downed after being “primed” by heavy rains and saturated soils, he said. Five transmission towers and approximately 1,500 utility poles were damaged.
The wooden distribution poles commonly found along residential streets are typically rated for winds of about 55 miles per hour.
Wind speeds “exceed(ed) what the system was designed to withstand,” Parisi said.
NIPSCO has a supply of replacement wooden poles with higher wind ratings than some older equipment, but the utility may also consider installing stronger steel poles in the future, according to Parisi.
He said the company is conducting an internal after-action review that will be provided to the legislative committee. An outside contractor will also review the response, with those findings expected to be released publicly.
It remains unclear whether the cost of those reviews could ultimately be passed on to ratepayers.
Lawmakers recommend new utility requirements
The Interim Study Committee on Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications initially met to receive legally required reports from state utility regulators and consumer advocates before turning its attention to NIPSCO’s storm response.
The bipartisan committee unanimously approved recommendations for legislation that would require utilities to submit written emergency response procedures to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission and update those procedures annually.
The committee also recommended requiring the IURC to inspect utility vegetation management programs every two years.
Trees and other vegetation are among the primary causes of electrical outages.
Union raises staffing concerns
United Steelworkers Local 12775 President Ryan Baker, a station chemical technician at NIPSCO, told lawmakers that the utility currently employs 183 electrical line workers, down from 233 in 2020.
“Fifty extra line workers would have provided an extra 800 man hours per day of experts on our system efficiently and safely restoring power,” Baker said.
Baker suggested that state lawmakers consider requirements ensuring utilities maintain enough employees to meet baseline customer needs and reduce reliance on more expensive out-of-state contract workers.
Calls for reimbursement and better communication
Other residents and officials urged NIPSCO to reimburse customers for lost food and medicine, avoid charging fixed service costs during periods when customers had no electricity and improve its public communications.
Several communities were not included in storm restoration updates, which Parisi said was because NIPSCO did not yet have reliable information about restoration timelines.
“Even if the answer is, ‘We don’t know yet, we haven’t worked out a timeline for your city yet,’ some sort of communication has to be in place,” said Rep. Earl Harris, D-East Chicago. “This way, people at least have an idea.”
Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission Chair Anthony Swinger said the agency’s investigation into NIPSCO’s storm response will include field hearings in northwest Indiana.
Swinger also encouraged customers to submit written comments, which will become part of the official case record.
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