When a powerful storm tore through Gary, Indiana, knocking out the power for two weeks, Tiffany Harrison, a mother of three, had to throw out all of the food that had spoiled in her fridge and deep freezer.

It was a big hit to her family in this majority-Black city where roughly 2 in 5 people rely on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, to feed themselves, according to an analysis by the nonprofit news organization Capital B. At the time the power went out, Harrison’s deep freezer had been stocked with discount meat, like family packs of chicken, which she buys in bulk and breaks down into smaller packages so they can last throughout the month, she said. “We learn to be frugal to make the food last,” she said.

But the storm turned that planning upside down and added additional expenses for thousands of parents like Harrison, who were not only without power, but were also advised to boil their drinking water. Suddenly, she needed to buy cases of bottled water and quickly restock her pantry with nonperishables to last throughout the outage — all while dealing with price hikes at the grocery store and on the money she makes working at McDonald’s. And as a single mother, she had to carry the burden on her own.

Read the full article about food access after the storm and power outage in Gary, Indiana by Jessica Kutz at The 19th.