This years Christmas storm is one some won't forget soon. Rain, snow, ice, blizzard conditions, closed roads and no electricity alter the plans of thousands.

On Monday, South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard used the state’s Emergency Management law to declare a state of emergency. This declaration will help facilitate the movement of out-of-state crews into South Dakota to aid with electric power restoration at electric cooperatives hardest-hit by the Dec. 25 winter storm.

Twenty-five workers from Iowa electric cooperatives and 10 workers from Minnesota electric cooperatives will begin arriving at the hardest-hit electric cooperatives on Tuesday. This is in addition to 40 workers from eight in-state cooperatives which started arriving at five cooperatives on Monday.

Electric cooperatives throughout western South Dakota and the northern half of the state continue to experience outages incurred in Christmas Day storms which brought blizzard, strong winds, freezing rains and even lightning strikes to the state. A handful of cooperatives were able to restore power to their members and are sending crews and equipment on to help restore power elsewhere in the state.

On Monday evening, 12 cooperatives were reporting outages to 13,750 South Dakota co-op members’ homes and businesses.

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