• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- Gov. Dennis Daugaard has asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a preliminary assessment of damages the recent ice storm caused to public and nonprofit property in southeastern South Dakota.
• Daugaard says teams of federal, state and local officials will assess damages this week in one tribal area and seven counties that have approved disaster declarations.
• The assessment will provide a preliminary estimate of the cost of repairing property damage incurred by the state, cities, counties, tribes and eligible nonprofits. Daugaard says damage to rural electric cooperatives and the removal of fallen tree limbs and power lines will likely be a significant part of the cost.
• The governor will use that information to decide whether to seek a presidential disaster declaration, which could lead to federal financial aid.
•

• CHET BROKAW,Associated Press
• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- Drought conditions in much of South Dakota have improved because of the past month's early spring storms, but it's not enough to recharge the deeper levels of soil, a state climatologist said Monday.
• Dennis Todey said conditions are better than last summer, when the drought cut into crop yields and forced many ranchers to sell cattle in South Dakota and other states. But people are still worried because deeper soil levels are dry, he said.
• "If we don't get sufficient rainfall in a two-week period, we're back into -- not as bad as last year -- but in tough conditions already," Todey said at a meeting of the state Drought Task Force. The task force, a group of state officials and others appointed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard, meets periodically to get an update of conditions and consider responses to dry conditions.
• The U.S. Drought Monitor report issued last week indicated that all of South Dakota is at least abnormally dry. About two-thirds of the state is rated in severe or extreme drought; no part is in the highest category of exceptional drought. That's a big improvement since January, when nearly 97 percent of the state was in severe, extreme or exceptional drought.

(Continued on page 15)