Michiana

It's one of the most familiar sights and sounds of the holiday season: The Salvation Army's red kettles and the bells! But one Michiana man is taking bell ringing to a whole new level.

SOUTH BEND - Local efforts are again ramping up to help those hit hard by Hurricane Sandy on the east coast. South Bend-based LeSea's Feed The Hungry is one of those collecting items to help. WSBT spoke with one woman with a special connection to the hard-hit east coast. On Wednesday, Diane Carbone drove all the way from Three Oaks, Mich. to drop off a carload of relief items at the Feed The Hungry warehouse in South Bend. It was her second trip in recent days.

MISHAWKA - It's a good thing we're heading into a weekend, because shoppers who spent all day and in some cases all night at the stores after Thanksgiving need some rest. But was the Black Friday rush enough to give retailers the confidence they need this holiday season? “We've actually been really busy. This is supposed to be one of the number one gifts this year,” said Jessica Waller, who was selling Pop-Up-Pals slippers at a kiosk inside the University Park mall.

Two more people from Michiana have died from fungal meningitis linked to tainted back pain medicine. And the lawsuits are now stacking up. Attorney Douglas Small of the law firm Foley and Small says both meningitis victims were clients of his. Small says 83-year-old Jack Durben of Edwardsburg, Mich. died in the early morning of November 10, and 87-year-old Viola Copsy of Constantine, Mich. died early this morning. Small says his office on Monday was filing a lawsuit on behalf of five other clients and will be filing additional complaints for more than a dozen additional people in the next two weeks.

Many of us want to know how we can help with the relief efforts on the east coast after Superstorm Sandy. Two organizations here in Michiana are aiming to help those in need. The Elkhart County chapter of the American Red Cross and the one in St. Joseph County are hitting the phones. Both agencies are calling volunteers to see if they can help with hurricane relief. So far, between both chapters, a total of 20 volunteers have been deployed to the east coast.

High winds on Tuesday knocked out power to thousands of homes and businesses, which are serviced by Indiana Michigan Power. The hardest hit areas are near Lake Michigan where the waves and winds from Superstorm Sandy are fierce. Early Tuesday afternoon nearly 2,900 I&M customers in Berrien County were still without electricity. The numbers were 2,300 in LaPorte County, nearly 300 in St. Joseph County and over 200 in Cass and Van Buren Counties. CLICK HERE for I&M outage map. NIPSCO was reporting a big drop in the number of power outages just after noon, with 2,200over 6,300 outages across northern Indiana with 2,700 in Michigan City.

Utility repair crews from the the Midwest are heading out east to be in place to help when Sandy hits. I & M is sending 90 repair crews. A spokesman for the utility says crews from South Bend, Fort Wayne, Muncie and Michigan were heading to Virginia and West Virginia. And local emergency first responders are setting up a staging area near Atlantic City. They will likely be there for several days. Their mission is to help with evacuations. Those who headed out east represent Wanatah, Clay, South Bend, Goshen Fire and Culver.

Help is on the way from our area to those getting hit by Hurricane Sandy. Indiana Michigan Power is sending about 40 crews to help get the power back on after Sandy rolls through. Many of them, including bucket trucks and linemen, left South Bend Monday morning. Millions are expected to be without power along the east coast because of Sandy. The I&M crews from our area were headed to West Virginia where up to 18 inches of snow could fall in spots. “We are going to have to see what kind of damage the storm does, and then they will be kind of working under the direction of the utilities that serve those customers, and that will determine how long they will be gone, said I&M spokesman David Mayne.

We are at the end of the election season, and so far our area hasn't received a visit from any of the presidential candidates. But over the last 130 years we have seen our share of campaign stops. According to the Center for History, one of the earliest visits came from Benjamin Harrison in 1888. He was running against and eventually beat Grover Cleveland. Harrison chose Clem Studebaker, the co-founder of the Studebaker Company, to be on his inaugural committee. Then in 1896, William Jennings Bryan visited South Bend.

The National Weather Service is giving us a word of warning. Scattered thunderstorms were forecast Sunday afternoon, with the main threat being damaging wind gusts. Winds of 20 to 35 MPH were expected with gusts of 45 to 50 MPH possible during the afternoon and early evening hours. The higher gusts are expected near the Lake Michigan shoreline. The Wind Advisory is in effect for all of northern Indiana and southern Michigan.