FORT WAYNE -
Tens of thousands of Hoosiers have now gone four days with no power. Friday's storms downed hundreds of trees, closed businesses, and made of mess of electrical grids.
Winds measured at 90 mph changed Jill Watkins' anniversary plans Friday night. The New Haven resident is one of more than 30,000 people in the greater Fort Wayne area that is still without power. The family is using a generator every two hours to keep a few fans and her refrigerator going.
"We have all electric appliances, so our stove is holding our popcorn maker that we've been able to plug into a regular outlet and use, but the microwave and stove, we are not messing with that at this point," Watkins said.
For four days straight in 90-degree-plus heat, two dogs, three kids and her husband are all now sleeping in the basement.
"A little family bonding time. At least it's summer break and time to sleep in each other's beds. Now we are all in one and everyone sleeps together. It's better, I guess," Watkins said.
Ninety-five percent of the power circuits were damaged in the Fort Wayne area due to the storm on Friday. A lot of physical damage remains, including trees uprooted, putting crews to work for several days.
"We are expecting 80 percent of customers to have power restored by late Wednesday night," said YaVonda Ulfig, I&M Power.
More than 60 power crews from Oklahoma rolled into town this morning to help.
"That's the way utilities have to work. You have to help each other. In our big ice storm, they came and we come to help them," said supervisor Rick Berg.
As for Watkins, she'll continue to wait for the numbers inside her home to go down.
"83 (degrees) in here and 52 percent humidity in here," she said.
From the Associated Press
It is taking longer than expected to restore electricity around Fort Wayne, with utility officials saying it could take rest of the week.
Indiana Michigan Power reports more than 30,000 homes and businesses in Allen County remained without power Tuesday morning following Friday's storm that hit the area with winds up to 90 mph and downed more than 500 trees in the city.
The utility had said it anticipated repairs to be made by late Wednesday. The company now says it expects 80 percent of that work to be done by then but that work will remain to hook small pockets of customers back up.
The company had about 118,000 outages in northern Indiana at one point after the storm.
(Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
Jill Watkins and her family have been without power for four days.
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