3/1/2024 0 Comments Yellowstone landscape central“It’s a Yellowstone town, and it lives and dies by tourism, and this is going to be a pretty big hit,” he said. It hit the park as a summer tourist season that draws millions of visitors was ramping up during its 150th anniversary year.īusinesses in hard-hit Gardiner had just started really recovering from the tourism contraction brought by the coronavirus pandemic, and were hoping for a good year, Berg said. (Katherine Schoolitz via AP)ĭays of rain and rapid snowmelt wrought havoc across parts of southern Montana and northern Wyoming, where it washed away cabins, swamped small towns and knocked out power. Raging floodwaters that pulled houses into rivers and forced rescues by air and boat began to slowly recede Tuesday across the Yellowstone region, leaving tourists and others stranded after roads and bridges were knocked out by torrential rains that swelled waterways to record levels. This photo provided by Katherine Schoolitz shows flooding in Red Lodge, Mont., on Monday, June 13, 2022. (Doug Kraus/National Park Service via AP) Gardiner, a town just north of the park, was isolated, with water covering the road north of the town and a mudslide blocking the road to the south. Flooding caused by heavy rains over the weekend caused road and bridge damage in Yellowstone National Park, leading park officials to close all the entrances through at least Wednesday. This aerial photo provided by the National Park Service shows a flooded out North Entrance Road, of Yellowstone National Park in Gardiner, Mont., on June 13, 2022. Residents of Red Lodge, Montana, are seen clearing mud, water and debris from the small city's main street on Tuesday, June 14, 2022, after flood waters courses through a residential area with hundreds of homes. Sholly noted some weather forecasts include the possibility of additional flooding this weekend. They seem to be happening more and more frequently,” he said. “I’ve heard this is a 1,000-year event, whatever that means these days. The park could remain closed as long as a week, and northern entrances may not reopen this summer, Superintendent Cam Sholly said. The only visitors left in the massive park straddling three states were a dozen campers still making their way out of the backcountry. The unprecedented flooding drove more than 10,000 visitors out of park and damaged hundreds of homes in nearby communities, though remarkably no was reported hurt or killed. “A little bit ironic that this spectacular landscape was created by violent geologic and hydrologic events, and it’s just not very handy when it happens while we’re all here settled on it.” “The landscape literally and figuratively has changed dramatically in the last 36 hours,” said Bill Berg, a commissioner in nearby Park County. They pushed a popular fishing river off course - possibly permanently - and may force roadways nearly torn away by torrents of water to be rebuilt in new places. The floodwaters tore out bridges and poured into nearby homes. The historic floodwaters raged through the nation’s oldest national park earlier this week and may have forever altered the human footprint on Yellowstone’s terrain and the communities that have grown around it. It hit 16 feet (4.9 meters), a foot (30 centimeters) higher than the water plant needs to work effectively. The water in the Yellowstone River hit its highest level in nearly a century as it traveled east to Billings, Montana, home to nearly 110,000 people. Floodwaters that rushed through Yellowstone National Park and surrounding communities earlier this week moved through Montana’s largest city on Wednesday, flooding farms and ranches and forcing the shutdown of its water treatment plant. The roaring Yellowstone River is seen from the air sweeping over trees and near homes Tuesday, June 14, 2022, in Billings, Mont.
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