A tornado and high winds caused a power outage for about 1,500 people on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation on Wednesday evening.
Wayne Sterkel, general manager for LaCreek Electric Association, said the outage occurred about 4 p.m. The towns of Kyle, Allen, Batesland and Porcupine were hit by the outage, Sterkel said, in addition to rural areas around those towns.
He said LaCreek was able to get all of the residents except those in the town of Kyle back on by 8 p.m. Wednesday. Those remaining 450 people were back on by about 3:45 a.m. Thursday.
The storm disabled two transmission lines - lines that feed power substations - which caused the mass outage, Sterkel said.
"Any time your transmission goes down, yeah, it's a big deal," Sterkel said.
He said LaCreek restored power by re-routing it through Martin and that LaCreek was able to handle the damage without any help from other electrical cooperatives. He estimated the total damage at between $30,000 and $50,000.
High winds were the culprit for most of the damage in the Batesland area, but a tornado struck the Kyle area.
Besides causing a power outage, the tornado also damaged one abandoned residence in Kyle, according to Wilmer Youngman, Captain of the Department of Public Safety for the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
He said there were also reports of some trailers having the roofs blown off. However, no injuries were reported.
The National Weather Service said the tornado was an EF-1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale and had wind speeds between 86 mph and 110 mph.
About a dozen power poles were damaged, Sterkel said.
Sterkel said LaCreek would frame and set the damaged poles soon.
Another tornado touched down five miles south of Kadoka and was on the ground for five minutes, according to the National Weather Service.
The NWS also reported three tornadoes spotted south of Gillette, Wyo., Wednesday afternoon.
The NWS was not aware of any damage caused by the Gillette or Kadoka tornadoes.
The storm carried 70 mph straight winds and hail about one inch in diameter across southwest South Dakota.
