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NATIONAL PARK SERVICE MORNING REPORT BLACKBERRY EDITION Monday, August 21, 2006 =============================================================================================================== INCIDENTS Yosemite NP Highway 140 Reopens In a ribbon-cutting ceremony this past Friday morning, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) opened the Ferguson rock slide bypass on Highway 140 between the town of Mariposa and Yosemite National Park. The road has been closed since late April due to a massive slide that covered Highway 140 in the Merced River canyon. This is a major commuting route for NPS employees, concession employees and park visitors, and the closure had necessitated commutes of up to two-and-a-half hours each way for some staff. The bypass, which was completed about two weeks ahead of schedule, utilizes two temporary bridges and the existing historical roadway to go around the slide. The road is currently open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily for vehicles less than 28 feet long. Once an automated system for monitoring the slide is operational, the road will be open 24 hours a day. Caltrans will now be concentrating on a permanent solution for repairing the road. The slide still remains active. Media coverage of the closure and of the event was high. [Scott Gediman, Public Affairs Officer] Sequoia-Kings Canyon NPs Body of Missing Hiker Found
On August 17th, rangers recovered the body of a missing hiker from the San Joaquin River in the northernmost section of Kings Canyon National Park. L.S., 56, of Hershey, Pennsylvania, who was reported missing on July 31st, had been on a multi-day backpacking trip with her husband and two friends. She was last seen by her husband sitting on the bank of the river near their camp in Aspen Meadow. The parks worked cooperatively with the Fresno County Sheriff's Office on this search. [Jody Lyle, Public Affairs Specialist] Yosemite NP Two Short Haul Rescues On the afternoon of August 12th, a Tuolumne SAR team member climbing Mt. Conness with friends on her own time saw a solo hiker fall about 40 feet and end up in a snow moat. This was just outside the park in Mono County. The man, who ended up wedged between snow and rock, sustained serious injuries and was unconscious. Runners were sent out to report the accident while other members of the group stayed with the injured man. Under a mutual aid agreement with the county, rangers and helitack personnel flew to the scene and evacuated him by short haul under the park's helicopter. He was then flown to the Mammoth Lakes airport, transferred to a commercial helicopter ambulance, and flown to a Reno, Nevada, trauma center, where he remains in critical condition. While the helicopter was refueling, a second injury was reported near Virginia Peak on the northern boundary of the park. The same team flew to this accident and conducted a second short haul rescue. A 26-year-old man had suffered a leg injury in a tumbling fall the previous night. He'd spent the night on a talus slope while his companion hiked out to report the accident. [Sally Sprouse, IC] Castillo de San Marcos NM Suspicious Device Found In Park On the afternoon of August 15th, a Florida Department of Transportation employee stopped at a street inside the park boundary to replace a manhole cover that was out of place. While working on the cover, he noticed a suspicious device taped to the traffic light pole with a wire running from a switch on it to the crosswalk button. He removed the device and took it to a St. Johns County fire and rescue station. The county bomb squad was called in and determined that it resembled a homemade explosive device. It was taken to a safe location, examined, and found to be a hoax, with no dangerous or hazardous materials within. The device itself was comprised of a styrofoam model airplane and two PVC tubes and wires, with a lead wire inserted into the housing of the crosswalk button. The area around the light pole was searched by St. Augustine PD officers and park staff, but no other suspicious packages were found. There are no suspects at present. [Gordie Wilson, Superintendent] Point Reyes NS Marijuana Field Eradication On Wednesday, July 19th, rangers found a marijuana patch in the Bolinas Ridge area and placed the area under surveillance. On Thursday, rangers from Point Reyes and Golden Gate, state park rangers, and members of Marin County's major crime task force entered the plantation and removed about 2,470 plants with an estimated street value of $3 million. An investigation is underway. Although there was no one at the site, evidence revealed that they'd recently been there. [Colin Smith, Chief Ranger] Great Smoky Mountain NP Marijuana Plantation Found, Plants Seized A marijuana plantation was spotted during an overflight of the Cove Mountain area in early July. Rangers hiked to the site the next day and found over 100 plants in small patches in three separate areas. They also found evidence of very recent tilling and signs that the garden's tenders might have hastily departed just before the rangers arrived. When they revisited the sites a few weeks later, rangers found that nobody had been there since their first visit. They made the same finding again on August 9th. Since the plants were no longer being tended, they harvested the fields, seizing 165 plants ranging in height from two to five feet. [Rick Brown, Acting Chief Ranger] OTHER NEWS Other news of interest from today's edition of InsideNPS, which can be found at this address if your inside the NPS ( HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/" http://inside.nps.gov/) and at this address if you're outside the NPS ( HYPERLINK "http://www.nps.gov/applications/digest/" http://www.nps.gov/applications/digest/). Note that not all articles that appear in the former make it into the latter: NPS Alumni - Obituary on Stan Albright, who died last week. WWII Memorial - New video tribute to veterans now on line. Media - Article on air pollution in parks. * * * * * Prepared by Visitor and Resource Protection, WASO, with the cooperation and support of Delaware Water Gap NRA. --- ### --- |