A small South Dakota town is dealing with a big, smelly mess.

The power company cut off electricity to an abandoned packing plant in Bridgewater in December, not knowing that tens of thousands of pounds of meat were still in the freezers.

If the wind blows just right, you can still get a whiff of what's frustrating Bridgewater residents.

"You can't open your windows and not have the stench come into your house," resident Kim Longe said.

People started noticing the smell a couple weeks ago. It took some time for officials to confirm the stink was seeping out of the Bridgewater Quality Meat packing plant. And cleanup started yesterday.

The 70,000 pounds of unrefrigerated buffalo meat was so spoiled that it liquefied and then literally burst out of its packaging.

"It's as bad as you might imagine," McCook County Emergency Manager Brad Stiefvater said.

At its strongest, some say the town when you stepped outside it smelled like something died, while others say it was exactly what they suspected..

And as temperatures soared well into the 90's only grilled the odor.

"Depending on wind and weather conditions, the whole town could actually stink at times," Stiefvater said.

McCook County officials hope they can plug up the smell by the end of the day so residents can stop plugging their noses.

"We're going in and basically bleaching down the coolers and washing them out to kill the bacteria and get this stench abated," Stiefvater said.

Until then, the town will continue to face a stinky situation.

Bridgewater's mayor says the city is trying to get ahold of the plant owner to take responsibility for the mess. The plant's been abandoned for more than a year.