More than 43,000 customers in Northwest Indiana still were without power from the violent wind and rain that slammed the region Friday afternoon.

As of 7 p.m., NIPSCO reported 43,618 customers without power. As of about 6:30 p.m., a spokeswoman for ComEd reported about 283,000 customers without power, about 58,000 of those in the south suburbs.

The outages spread throughout Northwest Indiana, said NIPSCO spokesman Nick Meyer, who said crews had been on alert to the storms, ready to begin repairing lost power.

The majority of affected customers were in Crown Point, Gary, Hammond and Lake Station.

"As the storm came into Indiana, we saw a huge spike in outages," Meyer said.

The weather also caused problems on the South Shore commuter line.

The 4:10 p.m. train leaving Randolph Street heading east into Indiana was caught in a wire at 23rd Street at McCormick Place in Chicago, Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District spokesman Bob Byrd said.

Half of the passengers on the debilitated train were moved to a car leaving for the region at 4:28 p.m., while the others were transfered to a train leaving the area at 4:57 p.m., Byrd said.

By 5:15 p.m., he said, all passengers should have been offloaded to other cars. There were no injuries reported, he said.

The wet, violent wind also ripped plastic from the "Steel Yard" portion of the scoreboard at The U.S. Steel Yard ballpark in Gary.