Blizzard at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation leaves Wanblee suffering

Spread this around so that the government will get their act in gear and take care of our fellow Americans who are suffering! Five days! This is not acceptable!

Blizzard hits Wanblee residents hard
By Scott Aust and Barbara Soderlin, Journal staff
Monday, November 10, 2008
Spending five days without electricity or running water has been an ordeal for people in Wanblee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Up to 200 people have been spending the night at the Crazy Horse school, at first without blankets or beds, cooking the school's food, diapering babies with old clothes, and trying to stay warm through power from a generator.

The makeshift shelter is being run by Pastor Gus Craven, who has also been helping residents make runs between their homes and the shelter, and who went to Kadoka Friday night on newly opened roads to get cots and blankets from that community's Red Cross.

He said he isn't sure when Wanblee will get power. On his trip to Kadoka he saw perhaps 20 downed power lines.

Most Wanblee residents don't have the gas or money to make the 56-mile round trip to Kadoka themselves, he said.

And some are afraid to leave, since there have been reports of people looting empty homes, he said. Craven said several families have dropped their elders and children off at the shelter and returned to their cold, dark homes to protect them from thieves.

Some relief came Saturday for the people at the shelter when the Black Hills chapter of the Red Cross sent blankets, water and toiletries. The state emergency management department planned to send food and diapers Saturday, said Russ Korzeniewski with the Red Cross. Craven didn't know Saturday evening if those supplies had arrived. He said the school was not out of food but there was not an excess, either.
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