Will Blackouts Be America’s Next Housing Emergency?

Nearly two weeks after severe storms ripped through Northwest Indiana, thousands of homes and businesses were still waiting for the lights to come back on.The delay prompted Gov. Mike Braun to call for a state investigation into the utility provider’s storm preparation.“NIPSCO is a monopoly utility that Hoosiers pay every month with the expectation that it will use its considerable resources to maintain its system, prepare for severe weather, and restore service as quickly as possible when disaster strikes,” Braun said in a news release on Monday. “NIPSCO has failed to keep its end of the bargain.”In nearby Ohio, regulators were conducting a similar reckoning after more than 18,000 customer outages coincided with unseasonably hot temperatures this summer.“These are life-and-death matters that also cost our residents and businesses thousands of dollars when our power fails at the times we need it the most,” Lakewood Mayor Meghan George said, according to the Lakewood Observer.George’s warning captures what’s pushing the issue beyond the electric grid. When service stays out for days, households can lose the use of homes they are still paying for, and face the sudden and unexpected e...