Yellowstone National Park officials took 10,000 visitors to safety this week as storms took away roads and bridges and nearby residents fled as their homes were battered by landslides and floods caused by record rainfall and melting snow.
In Billings, a town in southern Montana where nearly 120,000 people live, officials have asked residents to save water after the floods shut down a local water plant, according to a press release Wednesday. And employees in Gardnier, Mont. warned residents that the water supply was dirty and asked that all drinking water be boiled before consumption.
The park will be closed until the end of the week, as authorities prepare for new floods in four to five days, when the forecast predicts rain and high temperatures that could melt the remaining snow in the Yellowstone Mountains.
Here are some damage scenes:
Residents of Red Lodge, Mont., A town northeast of Yellowstone, cleaned up mud, water and debris from its main street on Tuesday.
Near the entrance to Yellowstone, floods washed away part of the North Entrance Road in the Gardner River.
A house in Red Lodge was pulled into Rock Creek by raging floods. Authorities say more than 100 houses in the city have been flooded.
The Yellowstone River overflowed and caused bridges to collapse – including the Carbella Bridge – and swept homes in Gardnier in the floods. Residents quickly mobilized on Facebook to find housing for families who had been displaced.
“People in Montana, they take care of their own,” said Britton Gray, a pastor at Gardiner Baptist Church who helped find shelter for families whose homes were affected.
Patrick Gray is standing in the floods around his home in Livingston, Mont, north of Yellowstone.
A house south of Livingston was surrounded by floods.
David Armstrong dumped a bucket of water from a flooded basement in Red Lodge.
Montana’s Department of Transportation was working Wednesday to repair another highway bridge that was damaged by the floods.
The northern half of the park, which has suffered the most damage, is likely to remain closed until the end of the summer travel season.
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