Major flooding swept away at least one bridge, washed away roads, and set off mudslides in Yellowstone National Park on Monday, prompting officials to close the entrances to the popular tourist attraction and evacuate visitors.
The flooding hit after recent “unprecedented rains,” park officials said on Facebook. “Our first priority has been to evacuate the northern section of the park where we have multiple road and bridge failures, mudslides, and others issues,” superintendent Cam Sholly said in a statement. The community of Gardiner, Mont., just north of the park, was isolated because the roads going in and out of town are impassable, officials said. The power is out in some areas of the park.
“Due to predictions of higher flood levels in areas of the park’s southern loop, in addition to concerns with water and wastewater systems, we will begin to move visitors in the southern loop out of the park later today,” Sholly said. Officials won’t be able to say when the park might reopen until the flood waters subside and they can assess the damage, he said.
“We started seeing entire trees floating down the river, debris,” Manning told The Associated Press. “Saw one crazy single kayaker coming down through, which was kind of insane.”
Floodwaters inundated a street in Red Lodge, a Montana town of 2,100 that’s a popular jumping-off point for a scenic, winding route into the Yellowstone high country. Twenty-five miles (40 kilometers) to the northeast, in Joliet, Kristan Apodaca wiped away tears as she stood across the street from a washed-out bridge, The Billings Gazette reported.
The log cabin that belonged to her grandmother, who died in March, flooded, as did the park where Apodaca’s husband proposed. “I am sixth-generation. This is our home,” she said. “That bridge I literally drove yesterday. My mom drove it at 3 a.m. before it was washed out.”
Yellowstone officials were evacuating the northern part of the park, where roads may remain impassable for a substantial length of time, park Superintendent Cam Sholly said in a statement.
But the flooding affected the rest of the park, too, with park officials warning of yet higher flooding and potential problems with water supplies and wastewater systems at developed areas. “We will not know timing of the park’s reopening until flood waters subside and we’re able to assess the damage throughout the park,” Sholly said in the statement.
