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NATIONAL PARK SERVICE MORNING REPORT Wednesday, November 15, 2006 =============================================================================================================== INCIDENTS Mount Rainier NP Park Continues Recovery From Major Flood Damage Mount Rainier suffered devastating flooding last week when nearly 18 inches of rain fell in 36 hours. It will be closed indefinitely. Here's a summary of the current situation: Trails - There's been extensive damage to backcountry bridges and trails. Sections of the Wonderland Trail will be unusable next summer. The suspension bridge and boardwalk have been damaged at the Grove of the Patriarchs. The grove is covered in a thick layer of silt. Nisqually Road - About 200 yards of the road is washed out and impassable at the former entrance to Sunshine Point campground. Water is crossing the road at the junction with Westside Road. The road is down to one lane at milepost 5 due to slumping. The Kautz Creek diversion is forcing the river to flow over the road and is undermining the road from the helibase turnoff to Kautz Bridge. There's now a sheer road edge off at milepost 9, creating a precipitous drop off. Sunshine Point Campground -- The campground, located directly on the bank of the Nisqually River, and the dike that protected it, is gone with the exception of a few campsites Longmire - The main channel of the Nisqually River is pushing closer to the park's emergency operations center (EOC) building. Parking behind the building is gone. Utilities - The main power line was severed and lost at Sunshine Point. All locations uphill to Paradise are affected by this loss. The Longmire sewage line was damaged. Power lines that crossed the Nisqually River at Longmire were knocked down. There's a great deal of sediment in all system filters. Longmire Back Road - The road between the suspension bridge and the community building is no longer safe for driving. It's eroded down to one lane in two sections. The main campground road is completely removed at the road fork immediately behind the community building. Kautz Helibase - The road is impassable and part of the helipad is sloughing off. Westside Road - A lane has partially collapsed near the Dry Creek gate, and there's significant damage upstream at Texas Culvert. SR 123 - Both lanes are washed out at milepost 11.5 to a depth of 60 to 80 feet. Debris has flowed across the road from milepost 10.5 to 11.2. A portion of the road is washed out just below Cayuse Pass. SR 410 - The state department of transportation has repaired and reopened the road. It was closed at Greenwater due to a logjam diverting two feet of river water onto the road. White River - A small section of the downhill lane sloughed off. Loop A is destroyed and is now a streambed. Stevens Canyon Road - There are slides at mileposts 5.5 and 7. A large slide also fell from just below the road, damaging the road edge in two locations and several sites in the Ohanapecosh campground. Carbon - More than two miles of the road is lost. There are multiple washouts and a half mile of the road is now a river channel. Ipsut Creek campground is underwater; the extent of the damage is unknown. A deep gully eroded under the historic Ipsut Patrol Cabin. Ohanapecosh - There's been some water damage to the Ohanapecosh Visitor Center. Part of campground Loop C damaged by a landslide. In order to truly appreciate the scope of the damage to the park, readers should go to the park's flood web site (click on “More Information” below), then view the album and/or slideshow, play the two videos, and, above all, click on “Slide Tour.” The latter provides images, maps, narrative and other details. HYPERLINK "http://www.nps.gov/mora/parknews/november-2006-flooding.htm" http://www.nps.gov/mora/parknews/november-2006-flooding.htm El Malpais NM Successful Multi-Agency Search On the morning of Friday, November 3rd, members of a multi-agency search team were able to locate and evacuate a park visitor whose vehicle had become disabled in an extremely rugged and remote area. The woman, nearly 70 years old, had driven her Volvo sedan across extremely rough, two-track backcountry routes in the Cerritos de Jaspe area of El Malpais National Monument and BLM's El Malpais Conservation Area under the mistaken belief that she was on a commonly used park touring road. The search team received weak and fragmented cellular telephone calls from the woman that only added to the difficulty of finding her. She remained lost in the park through Thursday night, during which time the temperature dropped to 22 degrees. Following 17 hours of fruitless ground searches, a New Mexico Department of Public Safety helicopter was requested. The helicopter's crew quickly located the woman. She had reached country so rugged that few patrols are generally attempted in the area since damage is likely even to four-wheel drive vehicles. The woman was in excellent condition, having spent the night in her car. Rangers and officers from the New Mexico Department of Public Safety assisted her in returning to her vehicle, which was then towed out of the area for repairs. Participating in this operation along with park staff were the Cibola County Sheriff's Department, the New Mexico Department of Public Safety, the Civil Air Patrol, and the Mount Taylor Search and Rescue Team. [Fred Moosman, Supervisory Law Enforcement Specialist]
Yellowstone NP Two Men Charged With Poaching Elk A tip from a vigilant citizen who'd noted suspicious behavior in the park led to the capture and arrest of two poachers last weekend. The two men - T.J., 21, and V.R., 25, both of Bozeman, Montana - were arrested on the evening of Saturday, November 11th, and booked into the park's jail. They're accused of shooting and killing a bull elk inside the Boundary Lands area of the park near Stephens Creek, west of the Yellowstone River and northwest of Gardiner, Montana. The men were each arraigned on misdemeanor poaching, drug possession, and weapons charges. T.J. and V.R. are in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service pending another court appearance on Thursday. A person convicted of a misdemeanor violation of the federal anti-poaching statute known as the Lacey Act can be fined up to $10,000 and sentenced to up to one year in jail. Carrying a weapon in a national park can result in a $5,000 fine and six months in jail. [Public Affairs] OTHER NEWS Other news from today's edition of InsideNPS, the National Park Service's home page: Natural Resource Stewardship and Science - Issues and stories are being solicited for the 2006 edition of Natural Resource Year in Review. The deadline, extended by one week, is November 24th. Death Valley NP - On Wednesday, November 8th, Death Valley National Park and the Death Valley Natural History Association held a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house for the park's new ranger contact station at Stovepipe Wells Village in the heart of the park. WASOI Interpretation and Education - Museum Specialist Arvid Aase from Fossil Butte NM is the winner of the 2006 Freeman Tilden Award for excellence in interpretation. WASO Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services - A vacancy announcement has been issued for the deputy chief of the Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services in the Washington Office. It closes on November 27th. To link to InsideNPS, click on HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/" http://inside.nps.gov/ * * * * * Prepared by Visitor and Resource Protection, WASO, with the cooperation and support of Delaware Water Gap NRA. --- ### --- |