For nearly two weeks, families across Gary, Indiana, were left without power. Residents lost groceries, essential medications and income while spending hundreds of dollars to keep generators running.

After residents and community leaders began speaking out, NIPSCO announced that it would pause residential collections and disconnections through September 30. The company also said upcoming bills would reflect reduced electricity usage during the outage and committed $2 million to regional recovery organizations.

These are important first steps—but they do not compensate Gary families for what they lost.

A temporary payment delay is not an outage credit. A lower bill resulting from electricity that was never delivered is not compensation. And charitable funding distributed through regional organizations is not the same as providing direct relief to affected customers.

I am Pastor Curtis Whittaker of Progressive Community Church in Gary. During the outage, our solar panels and battery backup kept the lights on, allowing our church to become a refuge for residents who needed food, water, electricity and a safe place to gather.

Before this crisis, NIPSCO put up roadblocks that threatened our ability to secure the very battery system that ultimately powered our church and helped us serve the community when the utility failed.

Gary families should not be forced to absorb the full financial cost of nearly two weeks without electricity.

We are calling on NIPSCO and the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to:

• Provide automatic, meaningful outage credits for every day affected residents were without power.

• Establish a simple and transparent process to reimburse residents for spoiled food, essential medications and emergency generator expenses.

• Extend the pause on late fees, collections, disconnections and negative credit reporting for at least 90 days following full restoration.

• Audit affected accounts, eliminate estimated electricity usage during the outage and clearly explain every credit or adjustment applied.

• Provide additional arrears relief and affordable payment arrangements for households experiencing financial hardship.

• Stop creating barriers that prevent churches, nonprofits and residents from installing solar panels and battery systems that can protect communities during emergencies.

Other utilities and states have provided automatic outage credits, reimbursement for food and medication losses, waived late fees and suspended disconnections following major disasters. Gary families deserve meaningful relief too.

This is bigger than one bill. It is about whether working families should be forced to carry the entire cost when essential systems fail.

Sign this petition to stand with Gary and demand that NIPSCO move beyond temporary measures by providing direct, meaningful relief to the residents who endured this prolonged outage.