Sioux reservation struggling after winter storms

Somehow I haven’t noticed much coverage of this in SD media, except for coverage posted yesterday in the R.C. Journal. There obviously has been coverage of other areas’ power problems…the utilities are doing yeoman’s work to get the system restored.

Sonny Brave Eagle and his family spent six days in the dark without a phone or working radio before law officers found them in their home after a fierce winter storm cut power across South Dakota’s impoverished Cheyenne River Indian Reservation.

“We didn’t know what was going on,” said Brave Eagle, among hundreds of people on the sprawling reservation amid a second week without electricity as utility workers struggle to make repairs. The storm brought down power lines, iced roads and led to water outages.

Tribal Chairman Joseph Brings Plenty estimated that 1,500 to 1,700 homes were still without power Monday, and said it would take “better than three weeks” to get the reservation up and running again.

The tribe has spent “enormous amounts” of money on such needs as fuel and water, and an emergency fund that had $175,000 a few months ago has been drained, said tribal spokeswoman Natalie Stites.

…but there’s lots of attention and funds for Haiti! Not to diminish that tragic situation, one still could wonder what happened to the bit about “Charity begins at home”?