Recent heavy rains are leaving many areas across South Dakota flooded. Butte County in the Black Hills saw nearly seven inches of rain in a short period of time late Tuesday evening.
Butte County sheriff Fred Lamphere says even though the waters are receding, the flooding is extensive.
“We are doing an assessment – I feel that we’re probably going to, at least at the county level, do a disaster declaration at this point. So I know we sustained a lot of bridge damage, there’s a lot of flooding down in the southeast corner because that’s where the conflux of all these creeks come together down there and it’s affecting our infrastructure, roads, and bridges in that part of the county. And then where this originated we received a lot of damage to bridges up there too in the northwest part,” says Lamphere.
Many roads and highways were closed around Butte County after the storm hit due to flooding. Although most are now open, some still remain closed.