RAPID CITY, S.D. — Power has now been fully restored across western South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana after a massive outage Thursday that left roughly one hundred thousand customers without electricity.
Black Hills Energy says the system-wide outage began just before one o’clock and was triggered by an event outside its network. The company says a third-party provider pulled power from the regional grid, but the exact cause remains under investigation.
Federal officials with the Western Area Power Administration say the issue started when two major 500-kilovolt transmission lines near Medicine Bow, Wyoming tripped offline, creating a sudden voltage disturbance that spread across the region.
Utilities also reported some damaged power lines and equipment, but service was restored by Thursday evening.
Black Hills Energy says the last outage this widespread was during Winter Storm Atlas more than a decade ago. The company says it continues to invest in system upgrades to prevent future disruptions.
And officials confirm the outage had no connection to recent solar storm activity.
