More than 1,000
NIPSCO customers lost power early this morning--including Porter Regional
Hospital (PRH) and Chesterton High School--after a pole on Ind. 149 was
struck by a vehicle, NIPSCO was reporting.
The accident
occurred at 4:53 a.m., on Ind. 149 between Joliet Ave. and 1050N--where a
69,000-volt line crosses from the east side of the roadway to the west--and
involved at least two vehicles with one injury, the Chesterton Fire
Department told the Chesterton Tribune.
Approximately 1,150
customers were affected by the resulting outage, which forced PRH to switch
to backup generation, NIPSCO spokesman Nick Meyer said. Power was restored
to all but 430 customers by shortly after 8 a.m. The remaining customers
were expected to be back on line by 2 p.m., “after the final cleanup work is
complete to remove the downed lines and ensure the area is safe,” Meyer
said.
At CHS summer
school students were being bussed to Chesterton Middle School and were to be
bussed back to the high school at the end of the day, CHS posted to Twitter
this morning. PE and driver education classes continued from CHS and were
unaffected by the outage.
CFD Capt. Rudy
Jimenez said that the lines fell directly across Ind. 149. The CFD cleared
the scene at 5:47 a.m., after a NIPSCO crew arrived.