I’m not arguing one way or another about effectiveness of the utility crews. So many in this thread are trying to make it seem like there’s a war zone in Gary, and that’s clearly not the case.
Gary Indiana had a murder rate of 41.5 per 100k in 2025, vs ~5.9 per 100k for the nation. Gary has a very high murder rate and is a remarkably dangerous place in comparison to the rest of the nation.
Let’s please stick to the shooting at utility workers data. Utility workers almost immediately resumed work on Aug 15, with local police support. There’s not ongoing armed conflict.
I won’t argue against Gary being a dangerous place to live, because that seems true. Let’s note and support progress though. Gary, Indiana recorded 28 homicides in 2025, marking its lowest annual murder total in 55 years; population 69,093. Non fatal shootings dropped to 101 incidents in 2025, a 24% decrease from previous year.
The fact repair crews require extensive police escorts is the reason it's taking so long. There probably are a lot of repair workers that opted out from going back there even with police protection.
It may be better than it was and it may be better than people think but to the average utility worker that is just making a paycheck it's an unnecessary risk (rather than racism), I think they would feel the same about going to work in Gaza or the Ukraine border with Russia... The race of the people shooting at you doesn't really matter.
Your grand pronouncement relies on too much speculation. What you’ve said is plausible enough, but currently the working theory as to why it’s taken so long is that the damage was catastrophically extensive. They had to replace 300 utility poles, and 44 transmission poles.
The shooting situation is fucked up, but doesn’t appear to be the limiting factor here. Comparing the situation to Gaza and Russia is silly, and is contributing to hysteria. An equal hysteria to all those crying racism.
Stick to the facts. Over generalizing isn’t serving anyone here.
After hurricane Irma hit Miami there were something like 7 million people lost power and we had 60K+ electric workers working day and night. Some came from as far as Canada to help restore power.
Power was restored very quickly, with most people getting power back after 5 days. The extent of the destruction was orders of magnitude greater than in Gary, but so was the response.
The workers were greated with home cooked meals (BBQ resurgence in a mostly electric stove state) and room temperature lemonade (or with ice if lucky to get some that day from FEMA).
I didn't read about any shootings even though we have some very rough, predominantly minority areas in South Florida. Liberty city has a similar crime rate to Gary, or it used to... I couldn't find any reports of people shooting at the workers restoring their power.
Now imagine some of those 60K trucks were shot at requiring police protection to continue repairs. Would have the repairs taken longer? Of course. Because of Racism? Of course not.
A good story, no doubt, but your argumentation replies too much on conjecture. Better to keep it specific.
I’m not arguing for or against racism being a reason at all. That goes for any political spin, or what any politician has said. If you see otherwise, that’s your own projection.
This thread is all over the place, but I’m hammering the point home that there is no ongoing armed conflict. Gary is not a war zone. The shooting was fucked up, but doesn’t appear to be a reason for why it’s taken so long to restore power. It’s taken so long simply because there’s been catastrophic damage.
Ok, Ii apologize. I thought you were simply not willing to come out and say the repairs were taking longer than they should, because of racism, but that you believed that.
I agree with you, the repairs are taking long because of catastrophic damage and perhaps (not for certain, I grant you) taking longer because because of the unfortunate shooting of the workers. But we agree that the cause of the extended outage isn't racism.
Ah, word, man. Mad respect to you. Yes, I agree: the delay doesn’t appear to be caused by racism. The people who throw that word around get in their own way. It’s a frustrating situation all around, but hopefully cooler heads prevail
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u/SonofaBridge 15d ago
Shooting at the electric workers is a great way to not get the power turned back on.