'A State of Emergency': Pine Ridge Indians stranded for days by flooding

Mar 25, 20190

KRISTINA BARKER – New York Times count

Wounded Knee District Secretary Babette Thin Elk while working on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, March 22, 2019. On Pine Ridge, extreme weather and bad roads have set off a humanitarian disaster that seems unlikely to abate soon. (Kristina Barker/The New York Times)

PINE RIDGE, S.D. – Ella Red Cloud-Yellow Horse, marooned for days by a blizzard and then a flood, needed to get out. Supplies at her house were running low. She had come down with pneumonia. She had a chemotherapy appointment to keep.

But her long driveway was blocked by mountains of mud - impassable even for an ambulance or a tractor.

http://www.startribune.com/a-state-of-emergency-pine-ridge-indians-stranded-for-days-by-flooding/507594582/