A wind gust measured at 131 mph tore through Highmore last week, leaving behind what officials described as extreme damage and drawing a direct response from South Dakota’s governor.
Highmore, the county seat of Hyde County in central South Dakota, took the brunt of a storm system that also ripped across northeastern parts of the state. Photos from the affected areas showed widespread structural damage — roofs stripped, trees downed, debris scattered across streets.
State response
The governor traveled to Highmore after the storm, a move that signals the scale of destruction on the ground. State resources were mobilized, though the full scope of assistance hadn’t been publicly detailed as of Monday, June 30.
A 131 mph gust is well above the threshold for EF2 tornado-level winds — and this wasn’t a tornado. That kind of straight-line wind speed in an open-plains storm is rare enough that meteorologists took notice well beyond South Dakota’s borders.
Central and northeastern South Dakota bore the worst of it, with damage reports still coming in from multiple communities as of late June. Whether Hyde County will pursue a federal disaster declaration wasn’t immediately clear.
