NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
                           MORNING REPORT

To:        All National Park Service Areas and Offices

From:      Division of Ranger Activities, Washington Office

Day/Date:  Tuesday, March 18, 1997

Broadcast: By 1000 ET

INCIDENTS

96-707 - Yosemite NP (California) - Follow-up on Winter Storm Impacts

Yosemite Valley reopened to visitors at noon on Friday, March 14th.  About a
thousand visitors entered the park that day; an estimated 4,000 people
visited on Saturday, and almost the same number came on Sunday.  The latter
figure is about two-thirds of average daily visitation during March, 1996. 
The opening ceremony was covered by reporters from about 50 media
organizations, including ABC TV, CNN, Fox, the New York Times, the Christian
Science Monitor, and the San Francisco Chronicle.  Meanwhile, work continues
on interior park roads.  Highway 140 remains closed to private vehicles from
Yosemite Valley to El Portal.  Plans still call for a Memorial Day reopening. 
Concessions operations are up and running, with some limitations due to flood
damage.  Visitor interest in the flood and its impacts remains high. 
Interpreters are regularly leading walks through flood-damaged portions of
the valley.  Wayside exhibits chronicling flood events have been erected
throughout Yosemite Valley through donations from the Yosemite Fund.  [Scott
Gediman, PIO, YOSE, 3/17]

97-100 - New River Gorge NR (West Virginia) - Search and Rescues

On the evening of Saturday, March 15th, the park received a request for
assistance in a search of the park and surrounding area for two missing
juvenile girls.  The girls left their home that morning and hiked to Thurmond
on park trails.  They called their parents from the Thurmond ranger station
that afternoon and said they were returning home; when they failed to arrive
at the appointed hour (7 p.m.), the parents notified the county sheriff's
office, which took no immediate action.  Rangers were called out just after
9:30 p.m. and began a hasty search of the area.  At about the same time,
relatives of the missing girls began their own search on ATVs.  J.B.,
the girls' uncle, was searching along a park trail near the New River around
11 p.m. when he hit a stump and rolled the ATV 30 feet over a steep
embankment.  J.B. sustained injuries to his knee and back.  Rangers
searching the trail discovered him just after midnight and evacuated him to
an NPS four-wheel-drive vehicle that in turn transported him to a waiting
ambulance.  He was treated at a hospital and released.  The search continued
in the morning.  Around 9:45 a.m., the two girls contacted a park maintenance
worker at the Brooklyn River access.  They were uninjured and in good
condition.  During the debriefing, rangers learned that their short day hike
ended up covering 15 miles and lasted 22 hours.  They slept in the woods that
night in 20 degree temperatures just two miles from home.  [Rick Brown, DR,
NERI, 3/17]

97-101 - Crater Lake NP (Oregon) - EMS Rescue

The park received a relayed 911 cell phone call around noon on March 14th
requesting assistance for a skier suffering from seizures about two miles
from Rim Village.  Responding rangers found a conscious and alert patient
with an extensive history of seizures caused by a brain tumor, a recent head
injury, and a sleep disorder.  He was stabilized and transported by sled to a
waiting ambulance.  During the evacuation, he continued to suffer from a
series of seizures.  [George Buckingham, CR, CRLA, 3/17]

97-102 - Zion NP (Utah) - MVA with EMS Rescue

On the afternoon of March 16th, park dispatch received a report of a vehicle
rollover about a mile outside the park's east entrance.  Rangers responded
with the park's structural fire engine, ambulance and rescue truck.  The two
occupants were both outside the vehicle and suffering from multiple
injuries - C.B., 21, had shoulder, extremity and possible cervical
injuries; K.S., 30, was trapped under the vehicle's right front
tire.  Rangers employed extrication tools to remove her.  The women were
taken by ambulance to separate local hospitals.  K.S. was admitted to the
hospital in St. George with multiple rib fractures and a pulmonary contusion. 
C.B. was lifeflighted from Kanab to Salt Lake city with neck pain, a
concussion and a possible shoulder dislocation.  Alcohol and/or drugs may
have been a factor.  [Dave Buccello, ZION, 3/17]

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Report pending.

OPERATIONAL NOTES

Golf Courses in Parks - The Washington Office has received a request from a
Congressman on the NPS appropriations subcommittee asking for a compilation
of NPS units with golf courses within their boundaries, regardless of who
owns the land.  If you have a golf course within your boundaries, please send
a short note as soon as possible to Dennis Burnett at NP-WASO-POPS.  [Dennis
Burnett, RAD/WASO]

Film Permit Violation Notice - Park filming coordinators please note:  VERA
Television of Amsterdam, Netherlands (Erica Reijmerink, producer), recently
failed to pay the agreed amount ($250) of a filming permit in Alibates Flint
Quarries NM.  Travelers checks were to be paid directly to the ranger escort
for the convenience of the company, due to the short time before filming and
the fact that the work was scheduled outside normal office hours.  Insurance
was received and the performance bond waived.  The director gave the ranger a
difficult time, refused the escort, and filmed within Lake Meredith rather
than the quarries.  A bill of collection has been sent to the company but has
not been paid.  [Dale Thompson, CR, LAMR]

MEMORANDA

No memoranda.

EXCHANGE

No submissions.

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Prepared by the Division of Ranger Activities, WASO, with the cooperation and
support of Delaware Water Gap NRA.

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