PIERRE - Utility workers who've been helping restore electricity after an ice storm in Kansas are returning to South Dakota.

The South Dakota Rural Electric Association said the 70 workers will leave daily through Saturday after more than a week repairing power lines that were damaged Dec. 10-11.

Kansas Electric Cooperatives brought in more than 1,000 linemen from private companies and cooperatives in nine states to deal with more than 50,000 electric outages and the loss of 10,000 power poles.

The South Dakota workers were two-person crews who drove to Kansas in a bucket truck or a digger truck.