My restaurant lost power for 8 days after a storm and lost $19K in sales. The blackout in Gary, Indiana, is still going.

Joslyn Kelly Joslyn Kelly's J's Breakfast Club in Gary lost power for over a week after a derecho storm hit.

The power outage led to a 90% loss in sales for her business.

The blackout began on August 11.

As of Thursday, over 57,000 utility customers remained without power.

This is an as-told-essay based on a conversation with Joslyn Kelly, owner of J's Breakfast Club in Gary, Indiana , which experienced a major power outage following a derecho , or a widespread, long-lived wind storm, on August 11.

As of Thursday evening, over 57,000 customers remained without power, according to Northern Indiana Public Service Co.

This story has been edited for length and clarity.

The day started out decent, even kind of sunny, and then went from gloomy to all the way pitch dark as the storm came in.

We lost power around noon and had customers at the time.

I was sitting in my office watching the camera in the restaurant , and it just went completely dark.

The lights flickered a couple of times, and that was it.

I ran out and had all of the customers and employees come away from the windows.

We processed the last of the orders and encouraged customers to stay put as the worst of the storm passed.

The mood was shock and awe.