Yellowstone Flooding Rebuild Could Take Years, Cost Billions
(Worthy News) – Floodwater this week wiped out numerous bridges, washed out kilometers of roads and closed the park as it approached peak tourist season during its 150th anniversary celebration. Nearby communities were swamped, and hundreds of homes flooded as the Yellowstone River and its tributaries raged.
The scope of the damage is still being tallied by Yellowstone officials, but based on other national park disasters, it could take years and cost upward of $1 billion to rebuild in an environmentally sensitive landscape where construction season only runs from the spring thaw until the first snowfall.
Based on what park officials have revealed and The Associated Press images and video taken from a helicopter, the greatest damage seemed to be to roads, particularly on the highway connecting the park’s north entrance in Gardiner, Montana, to the park’s offices in Mammoth Hot Springs. Large sections of the road were undercut and washed away as the Gardner River jumped its banks. Perhaps hundreds of footbridges on trails may have been damaged or destroyed. [ Source: VOA News (Read More…) ]