SIOUX FALLS, SD (KELO) — Friday marks the 50th anniversary of one of winter’s worst natural disasters to strike the Midwest.
On January 10th, 1975, a snowstorm began battering South Dakota along with Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska, taking a deadly toll on people and livestock, while also creating amazing stories of survival.
What had been a mild start to winter heading into 1975 had skiers rejoicing at this early January snowfall.
DOUG LUND: “It’s hard to find anybody in the Sioux Falls area and southeast South Dakota that’s not happy for the snowfall activity for today.”
But that happiness turned into horror later that week, when more than a half-foot of snow, super-charged by 70-mile-an-hour wind gusts created massive drifts, burying homes and farm fields while stranding drivers caught in the storm.
“I was on my way back to Sioux Falls and the wind was blowing so badly and the snow, that visibility…and I intentionally went into the ditch,” Dick Bielski said in 1975.
Dick Bielski was trapped inside his car from Friday night into Sunday afternoon when he was rescued by passing truckers.
LEO HARTIG: “Any special survival gear in the car with you?”
“Yes, I had a fifth of bourbon. And from Friday night until Saturday night, I kept nipping off of that a little bit to try and keep me warm,” Bielski said.
KELOLAND News interviewed Bielski on the 10-year anniversary of the blizzard. By then, one of his feet that froze during that brutal weekend had to be amputated.
“I was so cold, the third day, really, I didn’t give a damn whether I lived or not,” Bielski said in 1985.
Farmers lost thousands of head of livestock in the storm. Many of the animals simply froze in place.
STEVE HEMMINGSEN: “You say you saw them in the fields, you mean they were dead on their feet?”
“They’re dead on their feet.”
State and federal officials surveyed the widespread damage by helicopter after the storm had passed.
“We just talked to people who’ve almost been wiped-out so far as their livestock herd,” U.S. Senator Jim Abourezk said in 1975.
Yet storm-battered farmers and ranchers remained defiant, in spite of the devastation.
“We’re not going to get out of the cattle business just because of one storm. We live in Dakota. And we figure if we live in Dakota, we’ll take more than one storm.”
The blizzard also toppled KELOLAND’s 2-thousand foot tower near Rowena. Engineers switched to a backup tower at Shindler and the station returned to the airwaves later in the day. A winter storm that brought so much destruction has left behind vivid images of nature at its worst, a half-century later.
Wind chills during the blizzard reached minus-70 degrees.
More than three dozen people in the Midwest died during the storm, including two Augustana College students who died from exposure after leaving their car east of Sioux Falls.
