Widespread outage impacting Western South Dakota and Northeast Wyoming as crews work to restore power
RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) -Chances are you’ve been affected by Thursday afternoon’s power outage.
Crews across western South Dakota and Northeastern Wyoming have been scrambling to get the power back on.
Black Hills Energy tells KOTA Territory News the outage stems from an event by a third party on the regional transmission system. the event was not related to black hills energy operations.
As of Thursday afternoon, KOTA Territory News was alerted that the outage could last into the evening and that it was not clear if it could last into tomorrow.
The first impact many people noticed was traffic lights not working, leading to gridlock at busy intersections.
“The mayor was in contact with Black Hills Energy officials as soon as the outage took place,” said Rapid City Spokesman Darrell Shoemaker.
Shoemaker says the fire department is urging people not avoid using 911 to report the outage or to talk routine business so the line can be maintained open for emergencies. shoemaker says the outage did lead to some immediate emergencies that needed to be tended too.
“We had a lot of reports of people stuck in elevators, in fact we had someone at city hall that was stuck in the elevator, but they were quickly rescued if you will,” said Shoemaker.
Police officers and deputies were sent traffic signals to keep cars moving along on major roads. For areas they couldn’t send reinforcement, police stressed the importance of treating intersections without lights as four way stops. City officials also urged drivers to use extreme caution and even avoid traveling altogether.
The rapid transit system was suspended as well while the public library closed down and the courthouse was evacuated. The rapid city fire department was called to the courthouse during that evacuation as there were reports of a popping sound and smoke.
The Pennington County Sheriff’s office eventually announced the courthouse would remain shut down for the rest of the day due to an electrical issue.
In downtown rapid city, businesses were feeling the impacts. Tandoor Bocado restaurant shut its doors for the night. Even before the final call was made to shut the business down for the night owner Jarred Bren says he was facing set backs.
“We cant prep the food that we need for tonight so that’s another setback and then obviously we’ve got all the refrigeration doors shut so we can wait until the power comes back to have those power up but we have to have them shut for now,” said Bren.
And at a dark 6throne barbershop haircuts were taken outside.
“Power’s out everywhere we’re pretty loyal to our clients, man, these guys book these appointments a couple weeks out so nothings gunna stop us out here, lights are off in the shop, nut lights are on in the world so we gotta get out here and cut hair,” said Barber Philip Thomas.
Around 7PM, Black Hills Energy announced an estimated 10PM restoration time for customers.
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