Yellowstone National Park evacuated thousands of visitors this week after massive flooding damaged roads, knocked out electricity and prompted the park to close.
In a series of meetings with gateway town residents and a press conference Tuesday, Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly outlined evacuation efforts, damage to park infrastructure and the possibility of timed entries or a reservation system when the southern part of the park reopens.
The park estimates it moved every visitor out of the park in a 24-hour period, with average visitation in June ranging from 15,000 and 20,000 people. It evacuated at least 10,000 visitors, according to Sholly.
With U.S. Highway 89 partially opened on Tuesday, visitors who were stranded in Gardiner were able to leave.
There were still a handful of backcountry visitors who were making their way out, and the park was in contact with them and knew their whereabouts based on their backcountry permits.
Sholly said it was unlikely the road from Gardiner to Cooke City would reopen again this season, with the full extent of the damage unknown.
Xanterra, which operates concessions in Yellowstone, was moving its seasonal employees in Mammoth to its operations in the southern loop, according to Sholly.
The park didn’t have a complete picture of the damage from the flooding, but the northern portion of the park reported more serious damage, with large portions of the road wiped out.
Sholly said he anticipates the southern loop could open “relatively soon” while the northern loop would take “considerable amount of time to get that reopened.”
Mammoth Hot Springs had been without power since Monday, and other areas of the park, including the Canyon and Lake areas, also had no power. While NorthWestern Energy was working to restore electricity, the lack of power was leading to concerns over the operation of wastewater treatment facilities.
“The infrastructure needed to host visitation in this park is largely dependent on electricity,” Sholly said.
Although the park would have to wait for the water to recede before understanding the full extent of the damage, Sholly said it was likely certain that areas of the northern road would need to be rebuilt and redirected.
In some places where a river or stream had caused mass erosion, Sholly said it was likely “the river potentially changed its course permanently.”
“This is not going to be an easy rebuild,” he said.
The sewer and water system that runs from Mammoth to Gardiner was also likely severely damaged.
There were plans to improve an older road that runs from Mammoth to Gardiner but it would be used for emergency access and potentially opened to employees. It would not have the capacity for visitor traffic.
Sholly said he’s heard the flood called “a thousand-year event,” and was not aware of the park having to close completely due to a flood before. The last time the park was completely closed was in 2020, when it shuttered due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the press conference, Park County Commissioner Bill Berg said the landscape had literally and figuratively changed dramatically in the last six hours, with towns in the county cut off.
“The only way to get into Cooke City or Silver Gate for our county staff is through Yellowstone Park,” Berg said, adding the county couldn’t provide law enforcement services or public health services.
The park closures would likely impact tourism and the economy of the county, Berg said, with businesses seeing people canceling reservations and asking for refunds.
“It’s a company town,” Berg said of Gardiner. “It’s a Yellowstone town and it lives and dies by tourism and this is going to be a pretty big hit.”
In a conference call with West Yellowstone residents and business owners, Sholly said he did not have a timeline on when the park could open at that entrance. While there was less damage on the southern loop, there was still road damage, power outages and infrastructure concerns.
The southern loop alone could not handle the whole visitation of the park, with July and August averaging a million visits per month. Sholly said they would need to consider how to control access to the park to make sure it didn’t overwhelm the infrastructure and need to shut down again.
“We will likely need to implement some type of system to ensure we don’t overwhelm the park resources on the southern loop of road and infrastructure,” Sholly said.
The park had not worked out the details of what a reservation or lottery system would look like but Sholly said he wanted to get the input of West Yellowstone business owners and residents.
Many West Yellowstone residents expressed concerns over canceled reservations or a decrease in tourism during their busiest season.
“I want to strike the balance of getting open and ensuring we’re considering all the things you need from an economic standpoint,” Sholly said.
The system could take the form of timed entry day passes to ensure guests were dispersed along the southern loop, according to Sholly. The park was considering a different process for businesses that had commercial use authorizations and allocating a select number of passes for locals.
“It might be one of those things where we see what the number is and try it out and if we have gridlock everywhere in the southern loop, we might have to pull back on certain elements in the reservation system,” Sholly said.
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