HELENA, Mont. –
Massive flooding devastated Yellowstone National Park and nearby communities on Monday, washing away roads and bridges, cutting off electricity and forcing visitors to evacuate parts of the iconic park in the middle of the summer tourist season.
All entrances to Yellowstone were closed due to flooding caused by heavy rains and melting snow, while park officials drove tourists out of the hardest hit areas.
There were no immediate reports of injuries, although dozens of stranded campers had to be rescued in rafts in south-central Montana. Authorities also said they will assess a possible “loss of housing and structures” in Stillwater County, Montana.
Elsewhere, some of the worst damage occurred in the northern part of Yellowstone and the park’s entrance communities in southern Montana. Photos from the North Yellowstone National Park Service showed a landslide, a flooded bridge over a stream, and roads badly damaged by the floodwaters of the Gardner and Lamar rivers.
The flood cut off road access to Gardiner, Montana, a town of about 900 people near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Gardner rivers, just outside the busy north entrance of Yellowstone.
In a Gardiner hut, visitor Parker Manning of Terra Haute, Indiana, had a close-up view of the rising water and the river bank draining into the Yellowstone River flooding right in front of his door. .
“We started to see whole trees floating down the river, rubble,” Manning told The Associated Press. “I saw a crazy kayaker coming down, who was a little crazy.”
The Yellowstone River in Corwin Springs reached 13.88 feet (4.2 meters) on Monday, more than the previous record of 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) set in 1918, according to the National Weather Service.
The floodwaters flooded Red Lodge Street, a 2,100-person Montana city that is a popular starting point for a scenic, winding route to Yellowstone. Twenty-five miles (40 kilometers) northeast of Joliet, Kristan Apodaca wiped away her tears as she stood in front of a demolished bridge, The Billings Gazette reported.
Her grandmother’s log cabin, which died in March, was flooded, as was the park where Apodaca’s husband proposed to her.
“I’m sixth generation. This is our home,” he said. “I literally drove that bridge yesterday. My mom drove it at 3 in the morning before it was washed.”
Yellowstone officials were evacuating the northern part of the park, where roads could remain impassable for a substantial amount of time, park superintendent Cam Sholly said in a statement.
But flooding also affected the rest of the park, and park officials warned of even greater flooding and potential problems with water supply and wastewater systems in developed areas.
“We will not know when the park will reopen until the flood waters subside and we can assess the damage to the entire park,” Sholly said in a statement.
The park’s doors will be closed at least until Wednesday, officials said. It was unclear how many visitors were forced to leave the park.
The rains hit just as the summer tourist season was on the rise. June, the start of an annual wave of more than 3 million visitors that doesn’t subside until the fall, is one of Yellowstone’s busiest months.
The remnants of winter, in the form of snow still melting and rushing from the mountains, made it a particularly bad time for heavy rain.
Yellowstone received 2.5 inches (6 inches) of rain on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. The Beartooth Mountains northeast of Yellowstone reached 10 inches, according to the National Weather Service.
“There’s a lot of rain, but the floods wouldn’t have been like this if we hadn’t had so much snow,” said Cory Mottice, a meteorologist with Billings National Weather Service, Montana. “This is a flood we’ve never seen before in our lives.”
Rain will likely decrease as cooler temperatures slow the melting of snow in the coming days, Mottice said.
In south-central Montana, floodwaters on the Stillwater River stranded 68 people in a camp. Stillwater County Emergency Services agencies and teams with the Stillwater Mine rescued people Monday from Woodbine Camp in a raft. Some roads in the area were cut off due to flooding, and residents have been evacuated.
“We will assess the loss of housing and structures as the waters recede,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
The flooding occurred while other parts of the United States burned in a hot, dry climate. More than 100 million Americans have been warned to stay inland as a heat wave settles over states along parts of the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes and east to in the Carolinas.
Elsewhere in the west, crews from California to New Mexico fought forest fires in a warm, dry, windy climate.
Scientists say climate change is responsible for more intense and frequent extreme events, such as storms, droughts, floods and forest fires, although unique meteorological events cannot normally be directly related to climate change without extensive study. .
Current conditions of the North Yellowstone entrance road through Gardner Canyon between Gardiner, Montana and Mammoth Hot Springs.
We will continue to communicate about this hazardous situation as more information becomes available. More information: pic.twitter.com/S5ysi4wf8a
– Yellowstone National Park (@YellowstoneNPS) June 13, 2022
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Associated Press writers Thomas Peipert in Denver and Mead Gruver in Fort Collins, Colorado, contributed to this report.