State Briefs

December sobriety checkpoints 

announced

Sobriety checkpoints are scheduled for 14 counties statewide during December. 

The checkpoints, announced by the South Dakota Department of Public Safety, are done each month in different counties as a way to discourage drivers from drinking and then driving. The checkpoints are funded by the South Dakota Office of Highway Safety and conducted by the South Dakota Highway Patrol with the help of local law enforcement.

Counties that have checkpoints scheduled for December are: Beadle, Brown, Brule, Clay, Codington, Custer, Douglas, Hutchinson, Kingsbury, Lawrence, Minnehaha, Pennington, Roberts and Stanley. 

Both the Office of Highway Safety and the Highway Patrol are part of the Department of Public Safety.

 

South Dakota launches Fallen Heroes Bridge Dedication program

PIERRE, S.D. – Governor Kristi Noem and the South Dakota Departments of Veterans Affairs, Military, and Transportation have launched the new Fallen Heroes Bridge Dedication Program. The program will dedicate state bridges after South Dakotans who died while in active service. More than 3,000 South Dakotans have made the ultimate sacrifice.

In Hot Springs, Veterans Affairs Secretary Greg Whitlock was present for the first Fallen Heroes Bridge dedication ceremony on Nov. 26. At the event, the bridge on US 38/North River Street was dedicated to Second Lt. Maynard C. Freemole, a World War II veteran from Edgemont who died in combat on Dec. 16, 1943, three months before his 21st birthday.

“Maynard Freemole and other fallen heroes sacrificed their lives so that we can go on living as a free people, free to choose our own destiny in this great nation,” said Noem. “This is a way we can memorialize the sacrifices of our heroes. Their legacies will live on.”

“Our fallen heroes are no longer with us, but their memory lives on in the hearts of their loved ones and our state,” said Whitlock. “Naming our South Dakota bridges in honor of our fallen will give us an opportunity of remembrance, reflection, and respect—for honoring the men and women who gave their lives in service to this nation. They cherished liberty and loved freedom enough to lay down their lives to preserve our way of life.” 

South Dakota plans to dedicate six bridges each year.

 

FEMA denies SD’s disaster request appeal

The Department of Public Safety has announced that FEMA denied the state’s appeal for a presidential disaster declaration covering severe weather damage done in six South Dakota counties from Aug. 2-11.

South Dakota officials had requested a disaster declaration for Public Assistance to damage done by severe storms, tornadoes and floods in the counties of Brule, Custer, Gregory, Lyman, Spink and Tripp. That request included Custer County, which experienced flash flooding during the Sturgis Rally Aug. 2 and the town of Burke, which was struck by an EF-1 tornado on Aug. 6.

FEMA declined the initial assistance request and South Dakota appealed. That appeal was denied in late November.

“We are disappointed both by the initial decision and now the denial of the appeal,” said Noem. “These counties were impacted by severe weather and damage was done to public infrastructure such as roads and bridges.”

In its denial, FEMA officials stated that none of the damage was “of the severity and magnitude” that it would prove too costly for the state and local governments to fund themselves.

“These counties, like the rest of the state, have been battered by storm after storm this year,” Noem said. “The impact these damages have on the budgets of the six counties has been tremendous. These counties, many of them small, do not have the financial resources to do this response on their own.”

Department of Public Safety Cabinet Secretary Craig Price said the department’s Office of Emergency Management will continue to provide assistance as requested to the six counties.

“I am proud of the work done by department staff in putting together the information for the initial request and then the appeal,” Price said. “As always, we remain available to assist counties as needed.”

Price said assistance may be available to people with individual recovery needs through the South Dakota Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters. People with individual recovery needs can email sdvoadpresident@outlook.com for more information.

South Dakota has received four disaster declarations this year and FEMA staff is working in the state on the declarations. Noem has designated the Department of Public Safety’s Office of Emergency Management as the lead state government agency for the disaster recovery.