Folks do know what’s happening in Gary, right?
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@adamgreenfield my family is only about two hours east and somehow I only found out how severe the impacts were yesterday. didn’t know about the organizing efforts, thank you!
@christa It’s crazy, right? Almost as if the mainstream media doesn’t give a shit about what happens to folks in a mostly Black, post-industrial town in “flyover country”!
To clarify: it’s been another one of those shocking-but-not-surprising things, to see how little note the media have taken of what’s happening in #Gary, Indiana - a predominantly Black, relatively poor, post-industrial city with a shrinking population.
Roughly 20,000 households have now gone ten days without electric power since an unusually strong derecho tore through on August 11th. In all that time, local electric utility NIPSCO has been unable to restore service, with all the predictable consequences: spoiled food and medicines, no recourse to air conditioning or refrigeration, local businesses unable to operate, people having to spend heavily on generator fuel (and suffer all the pollution that accompanies their use), difficulty charging phones and medical equipment, and schools remaining closed.
A ten-day outage would be inconceivable in most places, of course, so NIPSCO’s inability to restore power really stands out. The reason behind it is clear to everyone on the ground there: a local activist describes the situation as “organized abandonment in a deindustrialized sacrifice zone.”
#Mutualaid is currently being organized through a space called…the Space, one of a few autonomous projects in Gary (including the Joy Bomb social center, where I gave a Lifehouse talk on the last leg of my North American tour) where folks are storing goods and doing pop-up distribution.
@adamgreenfield Parts of Toronto were without power up to 10 days after an ice storm, and my sister in an urban area in Nova Scotia was without power for at least 10 days after a hurricane. The power folk had to first address the tree damage before they could get to the wires. I don't know what is going on there, but it's not unprecedented. Are they still working on the lines or is it deliberate?
@CStamp It’s racialized institutional indifference, in the perception of literally everyone I’ve talked to there. It’s worth noting, too, that Gary is a 35-minute drive from Chicago — hardly isolated or hard to get to.
@adamgreenfield When I was a kid we were told this is the kind of thing that happens in poor countries, now it's the kind of thing that happens in nearby impoverished states that consistently vote against their own interests.
But more such spaces are needed: “Ten more, a hundred. More in every neighborhood, to ground ourselves in moments when we already know nobody is coming to save us. It’s hard to take that leap and [gather the] confidence to just act, so spaces are really important – they give us that courage to *just move*, because it sets a sort of tempo to the rhythm of crisis. Knowing where to go within a few miles sets a frame of returning to something, when navigating a whole terrain of abandonment.”
I’m currently trying to get a bead on how the rest of us can best support autonomous mutual aid efforts in Gary, and will let you know as soon as I have more insight.
OK, here’s what’s cropping up: folks at the Space are asking for one or more solar generators. I’m looking at the Jackery Solar Generator 2000 v2, with two 200W SolarSaga panels, as I can vouch for it personally.
Will organize a Chuffed.org page & post link here shortly. Thanks so much for your interest, care and support.
(I know you want to be helpful, but please do not chime in to recommend instead other models of generator/pro-grade or OSHW equivalents. I know the Jackery well and think it’s well suited to this use case. Thanks.)
@adamgreenfield I wonder if it be possible to get solar panels and batteries shipped there. Any chance there's local people with enough electrical knowledge to set up off grid solar?
Also, would the threat of converting Gary to distributed power generation force the utility to fix the grid?
@adamgreenfield I was just talking to a coworker who lives in a nearby town (which is also out of power) it’s crazy!
@namhenderson I wonder how the Joy Bomb people are doing?
@adamgreenfield I’m afraid I don’t get reference?
@namhenderson Mutual-aid hub out of Gary, and one of the stops on my second North American Lifehouse tour. In asking around, I’ve just now learned there was some kind of schism, and there’s a new community space there called…the Space.
