Yellowstone floods wipe out roads, bridges, strand visitors

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Massive floodwaters ravaged Yellowstone National Park and nearby communities Monday, washing out roads and bridges, cutting off electricity and forcing visitors to evacuate parts of the iconic park at the height of summer tourist season.

All entrances to Yellowstone were closed due to the deluge, caused by heavy rains and melting snowpack, while park officials ushered tourists out of the most affected areas.

There were no immediate reports of injuries, though dozens of stranded campers had to be rescued by raft in south-central Montana. Authorities also said they would be assessing a potential “loss of homes and structures” in Montana’s Stillwater County.

Elsewhere, some of the worst damage happened in the northern part of the Yellowstone and the park's gateway communities in southern Montana. National Park Service photos of northern Yellowstone showed a landslide, a bridge washed out over a creek, and roads badly undercut by churning floodwaters of the Gardner and Lamar rivers.

The flooding cut off road access to Gardiner, Montana, a town of about 900 people near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Gardner rivers, just outside Yellowstone’s busy North Entrance.

At a cabin in Gardiner, visitor Parker Manning of Terra Haute, Indiana, got an up-close view of the water rising and the river bank sloughing off in the raging Yellowstone River floodwaters just outside his door.

“We started seeing entire trees floating down the river, debris,” Manning told The Associated Press. “Saw one crazy single kayaker coming down through, which was kind of insane.”

The Yellowstone River at Corwin Springs crested at 13.88 feet (4.2 meters) Monday, higher than the previous record of 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) set in 1918, according the the National Weather Service.

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