Scattered thunderstorms and high winds swept through Northwest Indiana Thursday night leaving downed trees and power lines and more than 44,000 residents still without power as of late Friday afternoon.
David King, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service-Chicago office, said the NWS is still collecting reports from local weather spotters. King said the storms were fairly scattered but a line of storms started in the northern Kankakee County-eastern Will County area in Illinois that proceeded northeast into Indiana, stretching from Cedar Lake into Gary, then Hobart and Chesterton.
In its most recent update, NIPSCO said more than half of affected customers have already had their power restored, but the remaining customers without power could be facing multi-day outages based on the extent of the damage to broken poles and cross arms, downed power lines, and trees.
Crown Point had the largest number of customers experiencing power outages at 9,332, followed by Portage at 5,705, Gary at 5,269, Hobart with 3,818 and Lake Station at 2,587, according to www.nipsco.com/outages.
The storm, described as a microburst by Mayor Josh Huddlestun, ripped through the central part of Hobart and its downtown.
A tree outside St. Bridget’s Catholic Church at 2nd and Main Street toppled over taking out a utility pole and its transformer units that laid on the pavement.
The city closed that Main Street section in front of the Hobart Public Library. Huddlestun said the city’s Street crews worked through the night clearing streets of trees and debris. There were between 30 and 40 trees down in the roadways, he said.
A large tree fell on a pickup truck and a home in the 1100 block of Garfield Street.
The owner told public works director Kent Moore the wind blew open her front door as the storm began. She shut the door and walked out of the room as the tree came crashing down. Moore said there were no injuries.
“Our crews were top notch and they were ready to go,” Huddlestun said.
Gary and Crown Point schools were canceled Friday due to storm-induced power outages. Several street lights along Merrillville Road from U.S. 30 to 93rd Avenue were out causing traffic backups into the afternoon.
Freelance reporter Carole Carlson contributed.
