Basin Electric transmission crews repair line after South Dakota tornado

(Mike Walker): "This is one of the worst I've ever seen. I was in Groton in 1977. We lost 15 structures. This compares with that. It's pretty massive."

(Erin Huntimer): "2010 may very well be remembered as the year of nature's discontent -- ice storms, snow storms, and now this."

Eleven steel transmission towers north of Bowdle, South Dakota, destroyed by a tornado. Nine flattened, one bent in half, and one completely gone -- pieces are found 400 yards away, over the hill.

The line carries electricity from Basin Electric's Antelope Valley Station near Beulah, North Dakota, to the Broadland substation near Huron, South Dakota. The tornado damage happened between two sections of line damaged in the ice storm in January.

(Mike Walker): "We've had hundred mile-an-hour winds, we've had six-inch-thick ice, they've withstood all of that for 30 years. When that tornado came in, I'm guessing it had to have been a couple hundred mile-an-hour winds."

He's right. The tornado was rated by the National Weather Service as an EF4 with winds between 166 and 200 miles an hour.

(Steve Denouden): "There's just so much damage. We expected to find four or five towers at most, and when we came up with the number of 11, it was really overwhelming."

Crews from all eight maintenance shops are here, tying off lines, unloading steel, and getting ready to rebuild. Repairs will take about four weeks if the weather cooperates.

(Jan Fasching): "It's just a mess. I guess you can say it's kind of lucky it happened out here in the middle of nowhere instead of, you know, Bowdle's only two miles away. It's better to be in the country instead of in town, you know. It's good and it's bad. It's bad for us, but good for the town."

A farmstead north of town gets hit hard. The family is fortunate to escape injury. Of the half a dozen buildings, only the house is left standing.

(Blake Eisenbeisz): "I was at my farm about three miles south of here. I could see it building, you know, and I was hoping it wouldn't hit town, you know. But I said, 'It's gonna hit some farms,' the way it looked. So when I came in from the farm I could see the roof missing from their house. So I knew they had some damage. I didn't know how severe it was."

Friends and neighbors rally behind the family to help pick up the pieces.

(Blake Eisenbeisz): "The day after, there must've been 70, 80 people here, you know, driving around out in the fields helping clean up so he can put his crops in when they're ready."

Debris from the farm is wrapped up in the transmission line's conductor. This used to be a boat.

Three miles of conductor and the towers are total losses. They'll be scrapped. Crews building the new towers are faced with weeks of work over muddy terrain.

(Jan Fasching): "We already got a truck stuck over the hill. It's gonna get into these potholes. They got a lot of rain. There's water sitting around, so it adds to the challenge."

(Steve Denouden): "I feel as though it's good experience. It's going to be a lot of work, but I think you gotta take it one day at a time and look at it like a bunch of little jobs rather than one big job, and just take one day at a time."

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