SOUND OFF! WITH CRYSTAL VISION
EPISODE: "Left in the Dark: The Fight for Gary’s Grid"
HOST: Crystal Vision
GUEST: Councilwoman Brenda Wyatt (Lake County District 3)
Welcome to SOUND OFF!, the heartbeat of Northwest Indiana. I’m your host, Crystal Vision. Today, we are keeping it a 100 percent real about the catastrophe right outside our windows. It has been over a week since the derecho tore through our region. Over 27,000 buildings in Gary are still sitting in pitch darkness. Food in the fridge is spoiled. The elderly are sweltering in their homes. Families are waiting in lines at West Side Leadership Academy for food boxes that are running out.
Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Gary, Indiana, is nearly 80 percent Black. It is one of the proudest, most historic African American cities in this nation. Yet, when the grid collapses, we are treated like a ghost town. Joining me today to talk about this infrastructure failure and the grueling race to get our lights back on is Lake County Councilwoman Brenda Wyatt. Councilwoman, thank you for sounding off with me.
COUNCILWOMAN WYATT:
Thank you for having me, Crystal. I wish it were under better circumstances, but our people are hurting.
CRYSTAL VISION:
Hurting is an understatement, Brenda. Let’s get straight to the bone. If this exact same storm hit a wealthier, whiter suburb north or west of here, would we still be looking at 27,000 dark homes eight days later? Because to the people on the street, this feels like outright neglect based on who lives here.
COUNCILWOMAN WYATT:
Crystal, look at the historical data. Gary’s infrastructure has been underfunded for decades. When the steel jobs left, the tax base shrunk, and the utilities treated our grid like a secondary priority. So when a disaster like this hits, our system is already fragile. It isn’t just about response time today; it’s about systemic disinvestment over fifty years. We are fighting a legacy of environmental and structural racism.
CRYSTAL VISION:
Exactly! Disinvestment is a polite word for it, Councilwoman. The White House just signed off on federal emergency assistance. They are promising up to $5,000 in individual disaster relief. But money on paper doesn’t cool down an apartment today. It doesn’t fix a blown substation. What is the actual, concrete timeline for the lights getting back on in Gary? When does the power company plan to show up for us?
COUNCILWOMAN WYATT:
The utility crews are working around the clock now, but they are prioritizing high-voltage transmission lines first. Localized neighborhood circuits in Gary—where mature trees took down aging poles—are taking the longest. We are being told to expect gradual restoration over the next three to four days, but full restoration across the city could take another week.
CRYSTAL VISION:
Another week? That is unacceptable. People can't eat promises. If the city’s official portal is telling us to go to cooling centers, but folks don't have gas to get there, we are failing them. What are you doing at the county level right now to bypass the bureaucracy and get immediate relief to these blocks?
COUNCILWOMAN WYATT:
We are demanding that the utility companies redirect mutual aid crews from out-of-state directly into Gary’s residential zones. We are also working with local churches to do door-to-door wellness checks. We cannot just wait on the federal funds to trickle down.
CRYSTAL VISION:
Councilwoman Wyatt, the media and the officials love to try and dismiss this disaster by reverse engineering it back onto the residents using doublepeak. They call our people "resilient." "Oh, the people of Gary are so resilient!" Let's keep it a hundred. Is "resilient" just a corporate buzzword they use to romanticize our suffering so they don't have to feel guilty about leaving us in the dark?
COUNCILWOMAN WYATT:
Crystal, you hit the nail right on the head, and it makes my blood boil. Calling Gary residents "resilient" is a political cop-out. It shifts the burden of survival entirely onto the backs of Black folks who have already been forced to endure too much. When they call us resilient, what they are really saying is, "We know we failed you, we know we aren't coming to save you anytime soon, but we know you'll manage to survive it anyway."
It’s a way to absolve the utility companies and state regulators of their accountability. Our people shouldn't have to be resilient just to have working electricity, breathable air, and basic human dignity in 2026. We don't want praise for surviving neglect. We want the same modern, reinforced power grid that every affluent neighborhood takes for granted.
CRYSTAL VISION:
You heard it here first. The fight is on, but the timeline is far too slow for a community already pushed to the brink. Councilwoman Wyatt, thank you for your time. To my listeners out there in Gary: check on your neighbors, stay safe, and keep demanding what is yours. This is Crystal Vision, and we are sounding off.