Welcome to winter: Newcomers to Sioux Falls weigh in on how they’re coping

No one, Kim Parnell said, expects Southerners to last long in South Dakota after experiencing winter here, especially after the penetrating cold and feet of snow.

Her family — including husband Scott and their children, Maddy, 11; Lillee, 10; Seth, 6; Zeke, 4; and 2-year-old Finn— have a goal.

“We hope to prove everyone wrong,” said Parnell, who actually is in the middle of her second winter in the state. The Parnells, who originally are from Georgia, spent January 2021 in northern Minnesota, where the temperatures never topped minus 40. So they thought they knew what to expect when they moved to Sioux Falls in September 2021.

But maybe they didn’t expect to be assaulted by the cold temperatures recorded before Christmas. And they certainly hadn’t experienced more than a foot of snow falling in about 24 hours’ time.

They’re not the only ones. But while newcomers to South Dakota didn’t greet December’s cold temperatures and strong winds with enthusiasm, the storms that have brought record-setting snowfalls generally are greeted more favorably.

Heather Ratzlaff, along with her fiance, Jamal Boddie; her stepson, 9-year-old Landon; and her daughter, 3-year-old Raven; moved from Florida to Harrisburg in late August.

“We were just like negative 20 is not that bad. Once you hit zero, can you really tell the difference?” before the move, said Ratzlaff, a business management student at Iowa Central Community College. “You can, absolutely can. The day it hit negative 20 was rude.”

Dj Sides moved to Sioux Falls from San Diego, transferring for a position at Amazon’s new fulfillment center. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, he has lived in California, Michigan, Louisiana and Oregon since 2015 with a stay in Mexico. In Memphis, when it snowed, 1 inch would shut the whole city down.

In the weeks since the Sides family — including his wife, Ariel, and their children, Lucas and Luci — moved in November, they have spent time exploring Sioux Falls, sites like the Japanese Gardens at Terrace Park. Now, the sloping hill that holds audiences for band concerts is the Sides family’s go-to spot for sledding.

“It was a lot of fun,” Sides said of the expedition with sleds. “We took them ice skating too. My daughter wants to get into figure skating, and we’re signing them up for that.”

Sides has learned the importance of having a winter preparedness kit in his car along with ice scrapers, brushes, blankets, water, “those hot-hands things,” and he has tossed in an extra coat. The Sides purchased a house built more than a century ago, and they’ve learned that cold can creep through the smallest crack.

“Plastic is your friend,” Sides joked. “Plastic on the windows and doors if you live in an old house. Ours was built in 1890, and I’ve got gaps in my doors that a small dog could get through. Plastic is good covering up all that stuff.”

Astrid Potter missed out on December’s deep freeze. Instead, she was in Iceland, where the temperatures were more favorable than those back in her new home. Potter moved to Sioux Falls on Dec. 1 and was greeted with an 8-inch snowfall about a week later.

“I loved it, and I was disappointed when all my co-workers told me it isn’t normal,” said Potter, an engineer who now works for a private firm after spending her career working for government agencies.

Potter’s husband, Russ, arrived Dec. 22, just before Interstate 90 closed. The cold bothered him a bit, Potter said. After last week, Russ Potter has begun searching for a reasonably priced snowblower.

The couple also has a son, Joseph. After living in Oregon and Washington since 2013 — and not dealing with snow since the winter of 2012-13 — and tiring of incessant rain and gray days, Potter put together a list of three criterion: reasonable housing prices, a gym that offered a program to meet Joseph’s interest in competitive trampoline gymnastics and a job for her.

“I just kept going east until I met all three,” Potter said.

She hadn’t even visited South Dakota until her move almost six weeks ago, although Russ Potter did spend a couple of days here.

Life in South Dakota is so far, so good. Joseph has had his first experience with powder skiing at Great Bear Ski Valley, and he liked it, his mother said.

And as far as she’s concerned, whatever weather South Dakota throws at the Potters can be taken in stride.

“You’ve got to roll with what you’ve got,” Potter said. “And make a snow angel. When it snows, make a snow angel.”

Ratzlaff and her fiance visited Sioux Falls last April after she discovered the city on Google while looking for a place to celebrate his birthday. The photos she saw of the city’s namesake falls was one of the draws.

The news they had decided to move to Sioux Falls stunned her family, who all live in Florida.

“They said, you have to buy survival kits, and I said, we’re not going to be living primitive here, we’re going to be living in a home with a heater. Nobody really knew how the cold weather was,” Ratzlaff said. “We have our emergency blanket and stuff in the car, but they want us to have generators in our apartment.”

The couple hasn’t purchased a generator — and doesn’t plan to — and living in an apartment complex means they won’t need a snowblower. A neighbor loaned them a generator, so they haven’t even needed to make that purchase.

Landon and Raven relish the chance to play in the snow, Ratzlaff said. While Boddie didn’t enjoy the freezing temperatures, Ratzlaff shrugged it off. The benefits of living in South Dakota outweigh any negatives from winter weather, she said.

“I think the only thing a lot of people new here hate is that it’s windy all the time,” she said. “But it’s like a winter wonderland really. The first day of snow flurries, I sat at the window all day and watched it like a kid.

“From our house in Harrisburg, there’s a big hill. Whenever my fiance gets off work, we go sledding on the hill. We’ve had plenty of snowball fights. My 3-year-old opens the door, grabs snow, and she throws at her brother no matter where he is.”

After spending several days shoveling snow last week, Sides has a chiropractor’s appointment this week. He had borrowed a neighbor’s snowblower, but the layer of ice meant he had to keep tilting it up, and that was too hard on his back.

“I think I probably used it for 20 minutes; my back wouldn’t allow me to keep going,” Sides said. “It kept getting stuck; I couldn’t do it. I was in the military, and I jumped out many airplanes, so my lower back and knees are not the greatest.”

Sides talked with friends from the Upper Midwest to pick up tips for dealing with winter weather. He thought he’d avoid frozen pipes since the plumbing in his house is in the basement, but the family spent several days in December without cold water. He has learned that with a long driveway, it’s best not to park all the way in the back to reduce shoveling time. And, like Ratzlaff, he has learned about the wind.

Sides isn’t eager for another big snowstorm.

“I could probably deal with these every five years; that’s about it,” he said. “My wife loves it. She wants to get completely snowed in.”

The rush to grocery stores to pick up break and milk puzzles the couple. Are people making milk sandwiches, they wonder? Instead, they have a good stockpile of canned goods and items that can be eaten at room temperature should the power go out.

All four Sideses love Sioux Falls, though, and Dj and Ariel said they can see themselves living here forever. He’s a photographer and she’s a writer; they’re eager to work together on a project that will take advantage of South Dakota’s changing seasons.

“We were trying to find a place that has seasonal diversity and was affordable and was well rounded and offered a good education and was a good place to raise kids. That’s why we came here specifically,” Sides said. “I’m so excited for the fall.”

Until then, he has months to sharpen his winter driving skills. “I’ve learned on the interstate to slow down,” Sides said. “In the city where the plows haven’t gotten and there’s more snow, go faster because if you go slow, you’re going to get stuck.”

Since moving here from Georgia, Pannell has found it surprisingly easy to handle vehicles in the ice and snow, if the drivers would only pay attention.

“We have noticed that even some Midwesterners have a hard time with it because they want to drive normal,” she said. “It definitely took some practice to get used to, but it’s not a big deal now.”

Like other families, the Pannell children love the snow and go sledding and have snowball fights. They built a snow castle in their backyard by packing snow into tote bags, then dumping out the compacted ice bricks that were produced.

The Pannells moved here because Scott Pannell is a preacher who intends to plant churches in small towns across the Upper Midwest. In their first year, they started Cornerstone Baptist Church in Tea and hope to start others in area communities.

Having a church means needing to keep the parking lot clear for members and visitors. The Pannells have that covered.

“Thankfully, we own a small-engine shop in Tea called Southeastern Small Engine where we sell snowblowers, power sweepers, plows and more, so we had all the right tools to get the snow moved easily,” Pannell said. “We are used to mowing lawns all summer and getting a break in the winter, but the snow has kept us just as busy.”

The most shocking part about December’s cold was discovering that a person’s eyelashes, nose hairs and beards can freeze and even form icicles, Pannell said. She describes the wind as outrageous. When it comes to snow, the family was shocked that school buses still run, that roads get cleaned up so quickly and how fast the snow can pile up during the storms.

Pannell has heard multiple complaints from lifelong South Dakotans about the challenges of this winter. Longtime residents may believe that no matter how many winters a Southerner survives, they’ll never become “real” Midwesterners, she said, but that will change.

“No one expects Southerners to last very long in South Dakota, especially after a rough winter. We hope to prove everyone wrong,” Pannell said. “We are making an effort to set down roots and make this our lifelong home. We started a church,; we own multiple businesses in Tea, and we hope to buy some acreage soon. We are staying, and we love it here.”