A nationwide propane shortage is hitting an American Indian reservation that straddles the border of North and South Dakota particularly hard, causing tribal officials to warn that the thousands of low-income residents who live there are running out of ways to heat their ramshackle homes. The Standing Rock Reservation is on the wind-swept Northern Plains where there is little to block the icy gales that whip in from the northwest and create wind chills as low as 50 below. Many residents live in mobile homes, some with ill-fitting doors, others with boards tacked up where the windows should be, or deteriorating roofs that leak much-needed warmth. The propane crisis escalated this week when Debbie Dogskin, a healthy 61-year-old woman, died while house-sitting for a friend in a rundown mobile home with an empty propane tank. “We think she just fell asleep and […]