>> It's been almost 2 weeks since a swept through Illinois and northwest Indiana with high winds damaging homes, uprooting trees and knocking out power for hundreds of thousands of residents while comment.

Customers in the air in the Chicago area saw their power restored within a matter of a few days.

Nipsco the electricity utility for northern Indiana reported that as of 04:00PM today over 9,000 customers are still without power.

Nearly 7,000 of those are in the city of Gary with another 800 in Portage.

Nipsco says it expects to have power back on in both of those cities tomorrow night as the scrutiny builds over the pace of restoring power, community members are stepping up to help residents in need.

Joining us, our Calvin Davis, government and politics reporter with Capital beat Gary.

And Joshua Austin, executive director at City Life Center Northwest Indiana.

We also reached out to utility company Nipsco and we'll share a statement from them shortly.

We also reached out to the mayors of Gary and Portage, Indiana, but have not heard back.

Joshan.

Calvin, thanks to you for joining us.

I'm Josh.

When did you realize that this storm is going to have the impact that it did?

>> The day it happened, I was here at the building.

I was in the lockdown because we have smart locks.

And so when the power's out of the building, you're locked out of the building side.

The big in my car during this storm.

Thank God I was safe.

But I saw it as it was happening and saw trees going down and lightning striking poles and things like that.

And then after that immediately after the storm was over, I drove around the city of Gary and saw the media devastation, the flooding, the trees down everywhere, power lines down.

>> Hold The polls just snapped in half.

>> It was it was different from any storm that we've had.

>> All right.

And I'm glad that you're safe sitting in the car with that storm happening must have been terrifying.

Calvin, what have you learned about why the storm caused so much damage?

>> Yeah, so I spent a lot of time last week talking to some environmental research is a meteorologist and actually become a little faster myself because I too.

had never seen that type of damage with trees being uprooted from the ground.

What we've been told about that storm that to Rachel storms is that they they bring sustained winds and almost hurricane force winds extend meteorologist even caught in the land.

Hurricane.

And they couple them with the fact that we've had some extremely rainy seasons here and soul combination of that with soil with those strong winds and the fact that those trees were around so many power lines is than it's going cut it back.

She told me when I asked or last week what made the recovery process so difficult in gear and that's when she spoke to the amount of tree coverage.

>> Madam Tree coverage and it sounds like the ground having been so wet from previous storms made it easy for those trees fall over.

Up next, Knicks go said in a statement to Wt Tw News just last Friday, quote, Nipsco employees who live in these area in these communities have been working around the clock since before the first storm touched down with mobilized emergency support from across the country to help and together, we will not rest until power is restored to every home and small business in our service territory.

Calvin, what of Nipsco spokespeople said about why Kerry in Portage specifically why it's taking so long for them to get their power back.

>> Yeah.

So the word from them has has always been related to the amount of tree coverage.

And was able to speak with an arborist who actually did tree Canopy Studies last year found that no berries tree canopy is higher than some of the the other areas.

But in terms of the that's what we're seeing.

A lot of elected officials from the governor of the state all the way to the mayor.

All eyes are on its go right now in terms of how they handled the response after the storm, particularly around the amount of line and that they had.

>> Yeah.

And we know the state of Indiana, the governor there has asked for an investigation into whether or not it's go.

He's done the job of maintaining its IT infrastructure.

Josh, what is this on, Gary, specifically, what does it for residents there?

>> Well, there's some residents who are just glad that hope is coming back.

You know, they've a lot.

They lost some hope.

You know, we're going so many days without but community has been a big thing here.

Everyone coming together.

>> Banding together from the churches to the Greeks.

You know, I'm a member of cab outside my so we went out barbecuing think people been doing things as live center.

This is one of the holes breakfast, lunch and dinner is served every day and then this multiple sites around the city.

And so people are feeling that that hoping that that support and that need they still are not happy.

You know, that they're without power.

But people are seeing that the government and that the local officials are working for them.

>> It there is a majority black community, of you know, Josh, kind of what are you?

You know, how do you think that's impacted the But also just how people even from outside of the community, how they're viewing what's happening in the slow pace of of returning to power.

>> It's not sure because somebody earlier should somebody earlier than it doesn't help that it's a black community because for years people of color have been marginalized left behind the last to get the proper response.

And so it does not help at all.

I don't think that in particular, but the reason why the response was slow is because we were people of color.

However, it does not help the matter.

There are lots of people of all races and all creeds who have been affected.

Now, this storm all, you know, all over the northwest, Indiana, as well as you know, that northern part that southern part of Chicago area.

But it doesn't help in this particular area where majority of people are below the poverty line right here around our building.

The median income is less than $30,000.

So when people are without power, more spotty power or certain areas get power sooner than others, it makes people feel a certain type of way.

But I believe that that people are working hard all over because their areas that where wealthy people sit on have power, even at this time.

>> Calvin, what impacts if you see news outages have on residents.

>> Yeah.

I mean, the main one has been centered around full, but, you just a doctor.

Austin said we've seen the committee leaned on each other in speaking with researcher who studies know read the way show resiliency.

The the main ingredient in that is their connectivity.

And you know that they carry on my life.

The community is very connected here.

And, you know, in situations like this, you're able to see neighbors, Leno, neighbors, organizations being kind of a stable place for people to go live resolve them on some of the she was able to go there several days.

so the community is leaning on itself.

But I think that a crisis like this really does his community because, you know, you don't have people displaced.

You have people isolated in Seoul in order to reach those people need to have strong connections.

And that's that's what we've been seeing.

>> Josh, you know, just just a few seconds left, what does the path to recovery look like?

Once power comes back on?

>> Once power comes back on, we need mental health services for families.

They're going to have PTSD after experiencing this when child care and I mean free childcare for families so that they can go work extra hours, they can go recover so that that to the insurance companies offenders could assess damage to houses in even apartment complexes.

And we need continuous support even beyond.

Just the power's back.

Ok, go, be good.

No, we need that.

That continuous support even beyond told it remains on track to.

from that.

>> Yeah.

Just as the power's back on doesn't mean all the problems are solved after going more than 2 weeks without power.

That's where we'll have to leave the best of luck to you both.

Kelvin Davis and Josh Austin, thanks so much.

Up next, we answer the most pressing questions about how this year's elections for Chicago Board of Education will work.

>> Reflecting the people and