Yellowstone National Park officials are speaking optimistically about recovery from devastating floods earlier this month while the Associated Press reports come-back costs could be "upwards of $1 billion."
The National Park Service has regular updates on its website, including the reopening of some park entrances, while others remain closed following the natural disaster that hit during the park's 150th anniversary celebration.
"We have made tremendous progress in a very short amount of time but have a long way to go," Yellowstone Superintendent Cameron Sholly says on the park's webpage. "We have an aggressive plan for recovery in the north and resumption of operations in the south. We appreciate the tremendous support from National Park Service and Department of the Interior leadership, in addition to our surrounding Congressional delegations, governors, counties, communities and other partners."
Park officials are still assessing the flood damage that includes numerous bridges wiped out and miles of roads washed out while area communities and hundreds of homes sustained damage along the Yellowstone River and its tributaries, according to the National Park Service.
"We realize there is much challenging work ahead, and we will do everything we can to support the park, partners, concessioners, and gateway communities on the road to recovery,” National Park Service Director Charles F. "Chuck" Sams III said, according to the website.
Recent reopenings are an improvement over Yellowstone's June 14 Facebook post in which the park reported that it will likely would remain closed for an extended period. The post mentioned the southern loop appeared to be less impacted than the northern roads and that teams were assessing whether the southern loop could reopen. The post referred to an aerial assessment the previous day that revealed "major damage" at the Gardiner, Mammoth Hot Springs, Lamar Valley and Cooke City entrances.
While the park’s north loop remains closed due to flood damage until further notice, Yellowstone began allowing visitors to access the south loop of the park June 22, according to the NPS website. To ensure the south loop does not become overwhelmed with visitors and to balance park resource protection and economic interests of surrounding communities, the park is instituting an interim visitor access plan, referred to as the Alternating License Plate System. Learn more about the system on the NPS website.
Based on similar natural disasters at other national parks, repairs at Yellowstone "could take years and cost upwards of $1 billion," the AP reported June 18.
The AP also said that, based "on what park officials have revealed" and its own aerial images and video, the most damage in the park seems to be its roads, particularly the highway that connects the Yellowstone's north entrance in Gardiner, Mont., to its offices in Mammoth Hot Springs. Large sections the highway were undercut and washed away when a tributary of the Yellowstone River jumped its banks. The AP estimated that "perhaps hundreds of footbridges on trails" were damaged or destroyed.
"This is not going to be an easy rebuild," Sholly said in the AP story, referring to highlighted photos of damage. "I don’t think it's going to be smart to invest potentially, you know, tens of millions of dollars, or however much it is, into repairing a road that may be subject to seeing a similar flooding event in the future."
