Weeks of brutal winter weather provide South Dakota plows season's first real test - Mitchell Republic 12/30/2022

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The South Dakota Department of Transportation is emerging from its first winter test, a two-week stretch of heavy snow, blinding winds and freezing temperatures that prompted rolling closures on the state’s main arteries and left at times thousands of motorists stalling in blizzard conditions.

“Visibility was so severe,” said Mike Carlson, the area engineer in the Rapid City region of the state Department of Transportation. “I hadn’t seen it this severe in 40 years.”

One day prior to Carlson’s Dec. 22 conversation with Forum News Service, the crew in the Rapid City area had gone late into the night with rescue efforts on I-90, where about 150 vehicles were backed up in traffic between New Underwood and Wall, according to Carlson.

Though the entire strip of the interstate from Rapid City to Chamberlain was not officially closed until around 6 p.m. on Dec. 21, Carlson said cars began to add behind two vehicles that had collided near New Underwood that morning, and the first stretch of interstate was closed around noon.. 

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