Governor seeks federal help for damages from December wind storm

A tower on Skyline Drive in Rapid City was damaged during a mid-December wind storm in 2025. (National Weather Service photo, courtesy of Candyse Arivett)

Gov. Larry Rhoden has asked the federal government to help pay for more than $1.7 million in damage to public property in South Dakota caused by a storm last month.

Wind gusts of 100 miles an hour or more tore through large swaths of western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming Dec. 17-18, causing what a press release from Rhoden’s office called “severe infrastructure damage.” 

Pennington, Custer and Fall River counties were among the most affected, the release says. The National Weather Service logged the highest wind gusts in recorded history at the agency’s monitoring sites in eastern Rapid City and the Rapid City airport during the storm, at 91 and 94 miles per hour, respectively. The top wind gust recorded by the agency during the storm was 101 miles per hour at a location 4 miles south of downtown Rapid City.

Some residents in the Black Hills experienced power outages that lasted a week, according to the weather service.

Rhoden’s disaster declaration, signed on Wednesday, opens the door to possible assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

If FEMA approves the declaration, it could pick up as much as 75% of the price of repairs to public property. Counties would pay 15% of repair costs; the state would pay 10%. 

To qualify for federal aid, an incident must cause at least $1.7 million in damage to public property. The December storm’s damage tally thus far “exceeds that amount,” Rhoden’s press release says.