Elsworth vs. Jumpin' Jack Frost

Mr. Heppler posts below on the Rapid City Journal and its assertion that Elsworth, not the blizzard, was the most important South Dakota story of 2005.  Now Jason is master of the "we report, you decide" style of internet journalism.  He often posts a story without stating any judgment though in most cases readers can guess where he stands.  The title of Jason's post "RCJ: Elsworth should top list" merely identifies the Journal's position. 

Reader Jeff Meyer dissents, in a compelling letter.

I disagree with you about the Ellsworth vs ice storm story.  We were without power or water for 9 days in sub 0 temps.  Try keeping your house from freezing, your livestock watered, and your toilet flushed for 9 days without electricity.  To say nothing about no TV or video games.  I even had to resort to talking to the wife and kids for several evenings.

 

I have served on a local volunteer ambulance service for 17 years.  During the storm, we had a call to a residence for a carbon monoxide poisoning.  I went to the ambulance building and was unable to open the door because it is electronically operated.  I pulled the emergency lever, and tried to open it manually.  It was covered with 2" of ice, and was far too heavy to open.  We finally chipped enough ice off so we could open it by hand, and then it was an adventure getting to the scene because of the ice and snow in the yard.  We had 2 such calls like this because of generators and propane heaters being improperly used in houses.

 

Now, remember, cars, trucks, tractors, etc. are dependent on electric engine heaters in order to start during cold weather.  Many farmers were unable to start their engines for lack of electricity.  Our town was without water after the first 24 hours.  The fire department had water in their trucks, but they were afraid that they would freeze up.  The nursing home had a generator, but ran out of water quickly.  Every store in our town was quickly 'bought out" of supplies.  The local gasoline stations were unable to pump gas for generators because their pumps would not work without electricity.  Suppliers were unable to get supplies into town because of blocked streets.  The only things able to move were snowmobiles, and it was very hazardous to ride them because of downed power lines, poles and trees.

 

After 4 days, we drove nearly 200 miles to purchase a generator so we could water our cattle, and then were able to keep heat in our house.  We then took several elderly people into our home for the duration of the outage. 

 

The power companies did a tremendous job of restoring power as quickly as they did.  But---in many cases the repairs were temporary, and we have had several outages since the restoration of the power.  In reality, we are just one big wind from another disastrous outage again.

 

Now, this is just one small community, but I read somewhere that there were over 100 communities affected by this storm.  Over 56,000 homes and businesses were affected.  If you estimate that there were 3 people in each home, you would come up with 168,000 people without power for days.

 

It wasn't the snow, it was the ice that did the damage.  The snow afterward was the icing on the cake.

I have two comments.  On the one hand, I think that the rescue of Elsworth was, by ordinary standards of journalism, the bigger story.  The closure of the base would have permanently ended thousands of jobs, and left the state looking for a long-term replacement for millions of dollars in revenue.  It would also have had a deep impact on the politics of the state.  I very much hope that the impact of the blizzard is short term story.

On the other hand, Mr. Meyer's excellent letter convinces me that the blizzard of 2005 (lets hope that was the blizzard of this winter) was one of the most under reported stories of the year.  It should have been a national story, and would have been, if it weren't for the fact that blizzards are harder to blame on global warming than hurricanes. 

But in all fairness, it was under-reported in the state as well.  We are still remarkably isolated from one another.  Living in Aberdeen, which was lightly hit and better able to deal with such an emergency, most folk didn't feel like anything that big was happening.  I think our local media is generally pretty good, given its resources.  But it didn't communicate the scale or personal impact of this event nearly so well as Jeff's letter.