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People affected by outage help out neighbors 

SPEEDWAY, Ind. (WISH) — People were rejoicing throughout the day as their power came back, but thousands were still in the dark Thursday night.

Some of those affected said there’s a silver lining to the outages: seeing their neighbors come together and help each other.

Pete Teagarden of Speedway was without power from Tuesday to Thursday morning.

The milk went bad and he had no air conditioning. But he says it could’ve been worse.

“Not really frustrating,” Teagarden said. “I’ve spent most of the last couple days helping a lot of friends.”

Teagarden spent his week cleaning up tree limbs and getting floodwater out of his neighbors’ homes.

“Wasn’t much I could do here,” he said of his home.

But there was plenty he could do in he neighborhood. So with his nephew, Shafer Cork, he got to work.

“It’s just the neighborly thing to do,” Cork said. “If I have something wrong with my house, my neighbors will come help me. I’ve known them all my life.”

And across the area, IPL had some help of their own.

The company brought in extra crews this week from outside the area.

Teagarden says he saved most of his food by eventually running extension chords to his fridge from neighbors house, who still had power early Tuesday.

After a few days of that, the sight of IPL trucks was a relief to him.

He says it was the longest he’s ever gone without power, but there’s a silver lining.

“You get to work with your neighbors more. That’s a good part,” he said.

Thursday evening, Richard McKay of west Indianapolis said he’d been without power for four days.

As crews cut debris from power lines, he used a generator to power a fan in his house.

McKay said people in his area are lending a helping hand to each other, too.

“It’s a pretty small community right in through here, a lot of older people. Everybody’s been helping everybody. Pulling trash out of their yards. Things of that nature,” McKay said.

IPL officials said full restorations for the Indianapolis area might not be complete until late Friday night.