Power restored to most of eastern South Dakota after storms; fewer than 500 customers still without

Electric companies in South Dakota had power restored to almost all customers on Sunday after they suffered outages related to straight-line winds and a tornado.

On Sunday, East River Electric Power Cooperative restored power to all of the cooperative’s wholesale power supply substations after severe weather caused extensive damages on Thursday throughout much of eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota.

"Thank you to the region’s cooperative consumers for your patience and understanding as we worked over the past few days to repair damages and restore power throughout the region,” said East River Electric General Manager and CEO Tom Boyko.

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Xcel Energy noted in a press release that power should have been restored to customers by the end of Sunday night.

Since Thursday night, approximately 36,000 customers initially had outages and a few hundred are still without power, according to Xcel. The majority of remaining outages are in the Sioux Falls, Salem and Bridgewater areas, although a number of communities also have smaller numbers of outages.

As of Monday morning there are fewer than 500 customers without power through Sioux Valley Energy. The customers are from Brookings and Lake counties, according to Sioux Valley's outage map.

Got a story idea from your community? Email reporter Alfonzo Galvan at agalvan@argusleader.com or follow him on Twitter @GalvanReports.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Power outages almost all addressed in South Dakota after storms