“The people are doing the best we can,” said Joseph Brings Plenty, chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, which has not had steady electricity or water since the weekend. “Our ancestors lived in these lands long ago and they were very successful living in these harsh conditions. But right now the homes we live in provided by (the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development) are not built for these weather conditions. We can feel the wind through the walls.”
With no heat, no power and no water, thousands of fallen power poles and roads still blocked by snow drifts, Cheyenne River residents are dependent on donations of outside supplies.
 David Montgomery | Capital Journal Bernie Stars, administrative assistant at Wakpa Sica Reconciliation Place, sorts donated food to be sent to the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. Wakpa Sica is coordinating donations to that storm-stricken area. Advertisement |
Donations of food, bottled water, blankets, heat and light sources, toiletries and cots are all badly needed by residents forced to rely on shelters to stay warm and fed.
All those items are being collected in the Pierre area at Wakpa Sica Reconciliation Place north of Fort Pierre, from where they will be shipped to Eagle Butte.
“When they called, they just want the basic things,” said Stacey LaCompte, “They’re very humble people and they’re surviving with what they can — and they’ll do okay. But we just want to do everything we can to help the elderly, the children and the people who have special needs.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, 1,250 consumers were without power in the Moreau-Grand Electric Cooperative, covering Dewey, Ziebach and Corson counties.
Remote parts of the Cheyenne River reservation might not get electrical power back for 30 days, Brings Plenty said.
The reservation’s water system is expected to be completely off-line until late today at the earliest, South Dakota Director of Emergency Operations Kristi Turman said. Once it starts pumping it will take time to fill the system and reach outlying areas.
“It’s looking like this weekend before the outlying areas get water,” Turman said.
Wakpa Sica is accepting donations from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., Central Time.
LaCompte said money and volunteers are also needed.
Brings Plenty said the tribe will need resources to not only deal with the current disaster, but to rebuild its power and water infrastructure and respond to any future disasters this year from its depleted disaster fund.
The State Bank of Eagle Butte has a fund for donations. They can be contacted at 605-964-3411.
“There is a need for volunteers,” LaCompte said. “A lot of the people that have been working in the shelters are tired now. They need people — even if it’s for a day — to come down and work the shelters and transport food and water and supplies to the communities.”
But Brings Plenty said would-be volunteers should call ahead rather than just coming up.
“Right now we’re waiting to see if we can get our hotel up and going,” he said. “We don’t have adequate space to be able to house volunteers. They would come up and find themselves just as displaced as some of the tribal members.”
Volunteers should call the tribe at 605-964-7711 or call Wakpa Sica at 605-223-9099.
Other vital work involved in getting the tribe and other hard-hit areas back online. State workers, private contractors and National Guard units have been working for the past week to help restore power and water to rural parts of the state, including the Cheyenne River reservation.
Currently 76 National Guard personnel, including five from the 200th Engineer Company, are currently assisting with the relief and recovery efforts.
Since the disaster began, a total of 125 Guard members and nine from the 200th have assisted, with some Guard members rotating in and out.
Sgt. Brian Gessner of the 200th said the Guard is needed to provide equipment such as bulldozers needed to restore power lines in remote, snow-covered areas.
After days working in hostile weather to respond to the disaster, Gessner said he’s been struck by the thousands of downed power poles across the state.
“Just seeing the poles down really sticks in the mind — and the ice around the power lines themselves was thick,” Gessner said. “Some of it was bigger than a softball and some of it could be described as bigger than a small football.”
Guard members from the 200th have been working around Ipswich, northeast of the Cheyenne River reservation. Gessner said their missions have included clearing paths for electrical cooperative trucks, towing the trucks in difficult terrain and helping to cross-brace power poles.
Weather for the rest of the week is expected to be cold and dry with moderate winds, National Weather Service meteorologist Greg Harmon said. Wind chills in some areas are expected to stay below zero at night.
A weather front moving through Sunday night might deposit two to four inches of light, fluffy snow.
Comments
15 comment(s)amazed wrote on Feb 18, 2010 10:08 AM:
Resident wrote on Feb 11, 2010 3:06 PM:
Here we go wrote on Feb 11, 2010 11:39 AM:
brave wrote on Feb 11, 2010 10:01 AM:
here we go... wrote on Feb 10, 2010 4:47 PM:
citizen wrote on Feb 5, 2010 9:08 AM:
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FORT PIERRE BOY wrote on Jan 30, 2010 2:19 PM:
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too many stories wrote on Jan 29, 2010 1:30 PM:
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native wrote on Jan 28, 2010 3:24 PM:
here we go... wrote on Jan 28, 2010 1:33 PM:
FORT PIERRE BOY wrote on Jan 28, 2010 9:47 AM: