Gone with the wind

If you were awakened by the sound of strong winds battering your home in the early morning hours of Dec. 23, you’re not alone.
Predicted strong winds for the area came to pass beginning just after midnight Dec. 23, strewing trash about town, knocking over trash cans, uprooting trees, damaging siding and roofs of homes, damaging cars and carports and even causing a trampoline to take flight and sending a 2x4 crashing through the window of a home.
The National Weather Service reported a high gust of 79 mph registered at Rapid City Regional Airport. Closer to home, Custer reported a high gust of 52 miles per hour, while Custer County had a high gust of 66 mph three miles west/southwest of Fairburn.
A strong storm system brought with it blizzard conditions for much of the Dakotas and into Minnesota, although much of the Black Hills dodged the snow.
Power outages and downed power lines were a product of the storm, as a fire broke out on America Center Road due to a downed power line. The fire, which grew to 48.36 acres (2.8 of which was on private land) was contained by the end of the day. Custer County Sheriff Marty Mechaley said the call for the fire came into dispatch at 3:59 a.m.
A smaller fire, .01 acres, was also believed to be caused by downed power lines and burned for a half hour near the Hazelrodt Picnic area. That fire had not officially been confirmed as power line caused, however.
The fire on America Center Road came perilously close to the home of Matt Brown and Dr. Joy Falkenburg. Falkenburg said she heard a voice telling her to wake up her children, snapping her awake just in time to see the glow of the fire out of her bedroom window. It was 3:46 a.m.
Falkenburg snapped into action, telling her children to wake up and get dressed and leave the house, which had lost power. She went outside to see a downed tree near a power line and a fire growing along the meadow. She wasn’t sure if it would keep going south or head toward the house.
Falkenburg took her children to her father-in- law’s home, while Brown stayed behind to help firefighters navigate the terrain. Just to get away from the home, the family had to pull a tree out of the road and drive through a pasture around another.
When Falkenburg returned at around 7:30 a.m., firefighters—who raced to the scene from near and far—had bulldozed fire lines around the home and had the grass fire out. About 30 minutes after the fire started, it snowed lightly for 30 minutes, which helped the cause.
Falkenburg believes there was Divine intervention in her favor that night  and said she is appreciative of Black Hills Energy (BHE), the firefighters and others who helped the family in their time of need.
“It was just really amazing to see the local response and how helpful people are,” she said.
Mike Chase, manager of marketing and member services for Black Hills Electric Cooperative, said no fires were started by the co-op’s system, although there were scattered outages during the day.
“We had one broken pole and several trees through lines, things like that,” Chase said. “We had everyone on by mid-morning Wednesday. Once the wind calmed down and the sun came up, it was a lot easier to find things and fix them.”
The outages went as far south as Pringle, with the worst outages in the Deerfield and Dumont areas. A circuit at the Pringle substation was knocked out, with the first outage reported around 2 a.m. in the Pass Creek area.
“We’ve had a lot worse, that’s for sure,” Chase said of the damage and outages.
At BHE, Mutch Usera, senior program manager, external affairs, reported there were intermittent outages in BHE’s system as well, including in Rapid City, Custer and Edgemont.
Usera said there weren’t any major outages and crews responded immediately to repair the outages. Most of the power outages were restored by Wednesday evening, he said.
Mechaley said a downed power line call was from Triple T Trailer Court, where lines were reported down and sparking in front of some homes and on top of vehicles.
The wind was pretty much a non-event on the county front, as county highway superintendent Jesse Doyle said the department pulled six trees off the county road system and had all the roads cleared by 8 a.m.
Stephen Coffee, who lives on Wild Rose Lane in western Custer, woke up to see a trampoline had landed on his fence. As it turns out, the trampoline had taken off from a neighbor 300 yards away and flew toward their home before crashing into their fence. Luckily it stopped there, as it apparently was heading straight toward some of the home’s windows.
The neighbor, who said they also had a canoe take flight (that was later found near Sylvan Lake Road) reclaimed the trampoline from the fence.
“It could have been a lot worse,” Coffee said with a laugh as he recalled waking up and seeing the trampoline on his fence. “What a shock. (I said), ‘What in the devil is this? Christmas came early.’”
Mechaley said the county’s emergency operations center was activated during the event so people could call for information. People did just that while also reporting scattered outages and damage.
In response to the storm, the City of Custer will allow residents to haul yard waste such as leaves, tree limbs, etc. caused by the storm to the old dump site at the intersection of Sylvan Lake and Willow Creek roads.
The site will be available from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Jan. 4-8, with one pickup or smaller trailer load allowed per weekend. Yard waste must be loose. No plastic bags will be accepted.