Chesterton, IN – Over a thousand Chesterton residents experienced a power outage Tuesday afternoon when a motorist lost consciousness and crashed into a utility pole.
The incident, occurring in the Crocker area, disrupted power for 1,228 NIPSCO customers after the vehicle struck and brought down the pole on 1050N. The Chesterton Police Department’s preliminary findings suggest the eastbound driver blacked out while returning home from work, leading to the crash.
According to the Chesterton Fire Department, the fallen power lines posed an immediate danger, preventing first responders from accessing the vehicle. Despite this, they managed to communicate with the injured driver, advising him to stay put until the power lines could be safely removed. The driver was eventually extracted and hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
NIPSCO crews worked diligently to restore power, managing to significantly beat their initial restoration estimate of 5 a.m. Wednesday, with lights coming back on for most customers by 6:45 p.m. Tuesday. A second outage affected 420 customers later that night, attributed to wind and debris, but power was fully restored by 2:30 a.m. This sequence of events highlights the critical importance of road safety and infrastructure resilience in preventing such disruptive incidents.
