“Many sections of the road in the (northern part) have completely disappeared and will require significant time and effort for reconstruction,” the park said in a statement. “… Probably the road sections in northern Yellowstone will not be reopened this season due to the time needed for repairs.”
Dangerous floods caused by heavy rain and rapid snowmelt began affecting the park and several counties in southern Montana on Monday, washing away or eroding roads and bridges and causing widespread damage to homes and businesses.
The park on Monday closed all five Yellowstone entrances to Montana and Wyoming to incoming traffic – in part to prevent people from getting stuck in worsening conditions – without an exact date for reopening.
And park officials have told visitors who are already there to leave – more than 10,000 have left the park since Monday, park superintendent Kam Sholi said on Tuesday.
Although lower temperatures and drier weather have allowed some parts of the swollen rivers to begin to recede, higher temperatures are expected later this week and over the weekend, which could lead to more melting snow. and therefore more flooding, said CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller.
“There will be no incoming traffic of visitors to any of the five entrances to the park, including visitors with reservations for accommodation and camping, until conditions improve and the park infrastructure is assessed,” the park said in a statement.
The rapidly deteriorating road conditions in Yellowstone have created difficult conditions for the evacuation of some visitors, including the parents of producer Tim Carter, who runs CNN, who had to cross a bridge that has been compromised.
“When we passed it, it was really scary because the water was already swirling around the bridge,” said Martha Carter. “We found out later that it was washed away.”
Meanwhile, some surrounding communities have been left without electricity or safe drinking water, as flood conditions have made travel impossible or dangerous and threatened water supplies.
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte declared a statewide disaster Tuesday and said he would seek an accelerated presidential declaration of disaster to help cover recovery costs.
Since the rescue effort began Monday, the Montana National Guard has evacuated at least a dozen people who were trapped in Roscoe, Fromberg and Cook City, the forces said in a statement Tuesday.
The dangerous flood is just one of several extreme weather events affecting communities in the United States, including a severe heatwave affecting more than 100 million people and severe storms that have cut off hundreds of thousands of electricity in the Midwest and the Ohio River Valley.
Dramatic floods call for evacuation and rescue
Rapidly rising water levels flooded homes, businesses and infrastructure in southern Montana on Monday, forcing many families to evacuate. But for some, roads and bridges were made impassable by the floods, leaving them trapped, sometimes without clean drinking water or electricity.
The Montana National Guard deployed four helicopters to help evacuate the affected areas Monday and Tuesday and also sent troops to Red Lodge to set up a command center and help with search and rescue efforts, forces said Tuesday.
A helicopter company from Montana dumped about 40 people from Gardiner, the city that acts as a gateway to the park’s northern entrance and was isolated from flooding, Laura Jones of Rocky Mountain Rotors told CNN.
The road from Livingston to Gardiner was reopened Tuesday for local traffic, goods and services, but “significant damage” remains, Park County Sheriff Brad Bichler told a news conference.
Heavy rain and snow over the weekend at the Beartooth and Absaroka mountain ranges, which stretch across the Montana-Wyoming border, created a “total water event of at least 4 to 9 inches,” the Billing National Weather Service said Tuesday.
This amount of runoff is similar to the region, which receives rainfall from 2 to 3 months from June in just three days, according to CNN Weather. Conditions led to the overflow of the Yellowstone River, which runs through the park and several communities.
The Yellowstone River in Corwin Springs reached a historic 13.88 feet on Monday afternoon, NOAA figures show, but retreated to 9.34 feet by Tuesday night.
Absaroki resident Tracy Planicek and her husband had just achieved their long-awaited goal of having a brand new home when the threat of flooding forced them to evacuate. Now she told CNN she desperately hoped she had escaped the destruction seen in other homes, some of which had been swept away.
“We could never afford a new house,” she said. “He is sitting at the top of the road and we hope that by some miracle God our house will be there.”
In the park, officials forced all visitors to leave the apartments and campsites and leave the park to prevent someone from being blocked, the National Parks Office said in a press release. The park has an average of between 15,000 and 20,000 visitors in June, Sholi said.
The park has also closed the back of Yellowstone and has been in contact with groups in the area.
“We have contacted or know the location of each rear user who is currently in Yellowstone,” Scholly said, noting that one group remained in the northern range. No helicopter evacuation is needed, he said.
There are no known injuries or deaths in the park due to the flood, Sholi said, and officials do not believe the park’s animals were significantly affected.
The southern contour of the park “seems less affected than the northern roads” and teams will try to determine when this circle can be reopened. But officials expect even this cycle to remain closed until at least Sunday, the park said in a statement.
Amanda Jackson, Carol Alvarado and Claudia Dominguez of CNN contributed to this report.
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