SCHERERVILLE | A strong wind or mild storm used to be enough to knock out power to a few hundred homes in Schererville's Pine Island neighborhood, but after some tree trimming, the problem appears to be fixed.

"To my knowledge, they've only had one outage of note this year, and at the same time that outage affected a portion of Schererville north of (U.S.) 30 and Merrillville, it was affecting a broader area than just Pine Island," Town Councilman Perry Ferrini said. "Whatever they did, to my knowledge, has worked."

Ferrini, who lives in an area of Pine Island unaffected by those frequent outages, said he learned of the problem last year, when he was campaigning for a seat on the Schererville Town Council.

The southern portion of Pine Island, east of Mathews Street, experienced power outages quite frequently, residents told him.

"They were literally running extension cords across Mathews because they wouldn't have power for a couple days," he said.

Ferrini thought the answer was for NIPSCO to install another power substation in the area, but NIPSCO wanted to try a different approach first and cut back foliage near the power lines.

Trees on lines and brushing against circuits are a major cause of outages, said Nick Meyer, communications manager for NIPSCO.

Crews began cutting the trees in March, Ferrini said.