RESERVATIONS IN WINTER
Weather is extreme on the Lakota Reservations of South Dakota. Severe winds are always a factor.
Winters bring bitter cold with temperatures averaging 9o (November through February) and often made worse with extreme wind-chill factors and record temperatures reaching -44o below 0oF (1996).
Over 60% of the homes are severely sub-standard, many without running water or electricity.
Tragically, Lakota have died from hypothermia due to inability to pay for heating.
It’s cold on the prairie in the winter. Bone chilling, snot freezing, blistering cold. But, for those who have no heat, it’s killing cold.
Every year, people die in Indian Country—elders, too proud to ask for help, families too dysfunctional to get it together—somewhat like in Anytown, USA. There is a major difference on the rez, though, and that difference is poverty, the likes of which compares more with the Third World than any place we’d like to call the United States. But, that is the reality, the reality on many of the nation’s Native American reservations, places which are home to hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom, particularly infants and elders are in danger of freezing to death.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/200...6/18472978.php
Full articles found at links.
Would you like to comment?
Though it gets nowhere near that cold in Arizona, or in Alabama. They have food/blanket/clothing donations there. We do have food, blankets, coats, sweaters etc that I would love to donate to the Lakota. Do you know of somewhere we can send gently used clothing and blankets? We want to help any way we can.
