The combination of ice, snow and wind due to the April blizzard is affecting the transmission system of East River Electric Power Cooperative. East River Electric is the wholesale power provider to 24 distribution electric cooperatives and one municipal electric system in eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota.
As of 8 a.m. on April 11, East River Electric has 27 substations without power. Most of the affected substations are located in Miner, Lake, Moody and Minnehaha counties. Clay, Lincoln, Union and Yankton counties in southeastern South Dakota are also experiencing outages due to the storm. The cooperative’s crews have mobilized to assess damages and start repairs where possible. Power to some of the affected substations has been rerouted to other sources. There are downed powerlines on parts of the transmission system but because of poor visibility and travel conditions crews have not been able to reach all areas to assess the full extent of the damage and make needed repairs. Consumers could see outages throughout the day today and possibly into Friday.
To view a map of outages affecting rural electric cooperatives in South Dakota, please visit the South Dakota Rural Electric Association’s online outage map: https://outages.sdrea.coop/outages/maps