Rapid City residents clean up after Friday storm
Angie Weeks, left, and Jeff Marlette remove tree branches from the roof of Donna Weeks' house along West Main and Nordby Streets in Rapid City on Saturday, June 25, 2011. The fallen tree branches were a result of Friday evening's storms, which places a hole in Donna Weeks' roof. Angie Weeks is Donna's daughter and Marlette is a friend. (Aaron Rosenblatt/Journal staff)
The lightning and hail came hard and fast during Friday night’s storm, driving Donna Hill away from her windows for safety. So she wasn’t watching when the storm decided to get personal with her property.
“All of a sudden I heard this terrible boom,” said Hill.
When she looked outside, she saw that a bolt of lightning had apparently struck the large cottonwood tree in her front yard, blowing off bark and sending a crack down the tree’s length.
“Oh my goodness,” Hill said Saturday. “The lightning and the thunder was terrible.”
Matthew Bunkers, the science and operations officer for the National Weather Service in Rapid City, said there were numerous lightning strikes in the city Friday night.
“We counted at least five relatively close strikes in (just) a minute or two,” Bunkers said. “There was a lot of close ground strikes around the eastern side of Rapid City.”
One strike even hit the National Weather Service building on East Signal Drive, causing computer damage and temporary power failure.
The lightning and thunder were only part of the devastation wreaked by Friday night’s storm. Tennis ball-sized hail broke windows and damaged cars, strong winds brought down trees and power lines and flash floods swept down Rapid City streets.
At the storm’s peak, more than 8,500 customers in the Black Hills were without power. Most saw power restored by morning, though around 200 scattered homes were still blacked out Saturday afternoon, Mutch Usera of Black Hills Power said.
Wind gusts averaged between 40 and 60 mph during the storm, with parts of western Rapid City seeing gusts as strong as 75 mph.
Bunkers said wind starts to cause severe damage to trees as it approaches and exceeds 70 mph.
Thousands were also affected by hail, which was particularly fierce in southern parts of Rapid City.
Tom and Kate Loff were sitting in their kitchen as the storm struck, first with wind and rain, and then the hail. Before they knew it, a hailstone smashed one of their kitchen windows.
Black Hills Power - News
At the storm's peak, more than 8500 customers in the Black Hills were without power. Most saw power restored by morning, though around 200 scattered homes were still blacked out Saturday afternoon, Mutch Usera of Black Hills Power said.
Mike and Eileen Miller's ranch, which is located northwest of Belle Fourche, was proposed as the site of a Black Hills Power wind farm. BHP withdrew its proposal after the state Public Utilities Commission refused to rule on the company's request to
She also led the city negotiations with Black Hills Energy in obtaining $7.5 million in advance tax payments for the power plant Black Hills is building north of Pueblo. She has been criticized, as well, for that role because of the series of rate
SPEARFISH – Brookings Post 74 rolled past a pair of opponents on the first day of the Alan Tellinghuisen American Legion Baseball Tournament on Friday at Black Hills Power Stadium. The Bandits beat the Miles City, Mont., Mavericks 11-1 in five innings
AP , 06.13.11, 06:47 PM EDT RAPID CITY, SD -- Black Hills Power, an electric utility serving residents and businesses in South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana, said Monday that it is cancelling a $38 million wind farm it planned to build near Belle Fourche
www.windaction.org | Black Hills Power pulls plug on wind farm ...
Black Hills Power said Monday that it has pulled the plug on plans to build a wind farm near Belle Fourche after the state Public Utilities Commission said it does not have the legal authority to determine whether the project would enable the utility to meet the state's voluntary renewable energy objective.
The voluntary objective calls for 10 percent of all electricity sold in the state to come from renewable, recycled or conserved resources by 2015.
Black Hills Power sought a ruling that the commission agreed the wind farm would be a prudent addition to its power portfolio to meet its customers'... [continue via Web link] Most of the sourced material posted to windaction.org is posted according to the "fair use" doctrine of copyright law for non-commercial news reporting, education and discussion purposes. We used to provide the full text of articles so we could document history as it's being made, however, due to the lawsuit filed by Righthaven, LLC of Las Vegas, Nevada (Steve Gibson) we now show excerpts and links only to published materials. We no longer post material originating from media sources working with Righthaven, LLC including Stephens Media newspapers. Please send takedown requests to: dmca@parkerhill.
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RT : 5,000 homes out of power in the Black Hills, down from a peak of 8,500 earlier tonight, per Black Hills Power.
RT : 5,000 homes out of power in the Black Hills, down from a peak of 8,500 earlier tonight, per Black Hills Power.
5,000 homes out of power in the Black Hills, down from a peak of 8,500 earlier tonight, per Black Hills Power.
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BLACK HILLS POWER WILL NOT BUILD WIND FARM NEAR BELLE FOURCHE ... June 13, 2011. ANNA LAMPE RECEIVES BLACK HILLS ENERGY IOWA YOUNG LEADER SCHOLARSHIP ...
