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NATIONAL PARK SERVICE MORNING REPORT Wednesday, April 30, 2014 INCIDENTS Congaree NP Missing Family Found After Major Search With the help of over ten local agencies, National Park Service rangers successfully located and rescued three missing visitors at Congaree National Park just before sunrise on Tuesday, April 29th. JR.K., 43, and his two children, ages 10 and 6, had been missing since Saturday night after they got lost during a day hike. Around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday night, JR.K. was able to send a text message to a friend, advising that he was lost and needed help. The friend relayed this to the children's mother, who called 911. Soon after that call, rangers and local search and rescue personnel, including air support, began hasty searches that continued until dawn. On Sunday, as grid searches began, park management decided to bring in an incident management team to provide stability and coordination among agencies. By midday Monday, 9,000 acres of the park's 27,000 acres had been searched and the team began working with partners to plan searches for the remaining areas. Ranger Jared Gurtler made audio and visual contact with the missing family around 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning while on the night shift at the park. At 7:30 a.m., with assistance from South Carolina Department of Natural Resources officers and their ATVs, the family was extracted and transported by ambulance to a local area hospital in stable condition. Ranger Steve Kloster served as incident commander for this operation. [Brent Everitt, Deputy Information Officer] OTHER NEWS The following stories are among those in today's webpage editions of InsideNPS (available to NPS employees only) and the Morning Report (available to all readers): Minute Man NHP - Hundreds of veterans and active military members came together at Minute Man NHP on Saturday, April 19th, for a marathon-length “Tough Ruck” march. Denver Service Center - A congestion management toolkit has been developed for park managers. It's designed to provide technical assistance to park, regional and DSC staff with traffic congestion problems. Northeast Region - A work session on preserving coastal heritage cultural resources in the face of climate change challenges was held over two days in early April at Federal Hall National Memorial in New York City. Alaska Region - Philip Hooge, assistant superintendent at Denali National Park and Preserve, has been selected as the new Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve superintendent. National Capital Region - Jon James, currently the deputy superintendent for George Washington Memorial Parkway, has been selected as the new superintendent of Manassas National Battlefield Park. NPS Alumni - Kevin C. Buckley, former general superintendent of Gateway National Recreation Area, has passed away. Viewings will be held tomorrow and Friday; the funeral will be on Saturday. To see the full text of these stories, readers should go to one or the other of the following sites: NPS employees - HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index" http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index Non-NPS employees - HYPERLINK "http://www.nps.gov/morningreport/" http://www.nps.gov/morningreport/ The Morning Report is produced by the Office of Communications with the support of the Office of the Associate Director for Information Resources. Edited by Bill Halainen ( HYPERLINK "mailto:Bill_Halainen@contractor.nps.gov" Bill_Halainen@contractor.nps.gov). --- ### --- |