RAPID CITY, S.D.— The snow storm that walloped several Great Plains states last week with 3.5 feet of heavy snow has some CUs in this town still closed or opening late today.
Dakota Star FCU, Telco FCU, Dacotah FCU, Sentinel FCU and Minuteman Community FCU all closed on Friday and cancelled Saturday hours if they had them. Still closed today are Telco and Minuteman, while Sentinel opens at noon.
Credit Union Journal spoke with Chris Kinder, SVP at Dakota Star, who said there is a single lane open in roads that are accessible, and navigating around town is hard. “It’s still difficult for members to get to us. We have seen some people walking through the drifts up to our drive-through ATMs. They are doing whatever they can.”
In addition to the travel problems, about half of the town lost power at some point during the storm. Some outages still remain, according to Kinder.
Many of the credit unions had to be dug out by plows, covered with drifts as high as five feet, said Kinder. “I can’t recall a storm this big here for at least 20 years.”
Minuteman Community, CEO Mary Connick said her office is open for business but not many members are stopping by. She said the snow drifts could be disappearing soon, since today temperatures are expected to climb into the mid 70s.
“From a blizzard to a warm, sunny day—quite a change. But we are concerned that the snow could melt quickly and cause flooding. We are staying on our toes here.”
