NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
                           MORNING REPORT

To:        All National Park Service Areas and Offices

From:      Division of Ranger Activities, Washington Office

Day/Date:  Wednesday, April 22, 1998

INCIDENTS

98-149 - Cumberland Gap NHP (KY/TN/VA) - Flash Flooding

The park received more than five-and-a-half inches of rain over a three-day
period culminating on Sunday, April 19th.  The flooding of Little Yellow
Creek resulted in axle-deep, swift-running water at the main stop light in
Middlesboro, and compelled rescue crews, police officers and rangers to
monitor the situation all day on Sunday.  The Iron Furnace and Sugar Run
areas of the park were closed; Pinnacle Road was also closed due to flooding
and minor rock and mud slides.  There were local and national reports of the
closure of Highway 25E, which runs through Middleboro and the Cumberland Gap
Tunnel, but those were false.  The rain abated late on Sunday.  A full damage
assessment is now underway.  [K.K. Stuart, PR, CUGA, 4/21]

98-150 - Lake Mead NRA (NV/AZ) - Attempted Murder, Sexual Assault

Ranger Randy Neal was dispatched to St. Rose Dominican Hospital in Henderson
at 1:20 a.m. on April 11th to investigate a reported stabbing.  T.R.,
19, told Neal that she was with a group of friends at Gypsum Wash
when an unknown male came to their campsite looking for his girlfriend.  The
man put a knife to T.R.'s throat and cut her when the group refused to
help him find his girlfriend.  The cut missed her carotid artery by only half
a millimeter.  At the same time, Neal received a report from a juvenile
female's mother indicating that her daughter was missing in the park.  The 
daughter's boyfriend, R.P., 20, had called the mother, told her
that he and her daughter had gotten into an argument, and said that she was
still at Lake Mead.  He also told her not to call the police, as someone had
been stabbed.  The mother used the return call feature on her phone to get
the number of the phone that R.P. had used to call her.  Criminal
investigator Mike Blandford arrived to assist Neal, and both went to the
mother's residence.  Assistance was requested and provided by Henderson
police, and the telephone number was traced to an address.  While this was
going on, other Henderson officers reported that they had just had a foot
pursuit in that same area that began from a traffic stop.  The man they had
taken into custody was Robert R.P.  R.P. was subsequently
identified by witnesses and the victim as the suspect in the stabbing. 
Ranger Mike Sabatini went to the crime scene at Gypsum Wash; when he arrived,
he was stopped by people in a vehicle who said they had a sexual assault
victim with them.  The victim was R.P.'s juvenile girlfriend.  She
claimed that she had been sexually assaulted by two men after she had walked
away from R.P., said that the suspects were still in the area, and added
that there was only one vehicle left at the end of the road.  It emerged from
the area a few minutes later and was stopped by Sabatini.  There were two men
and three women in the vehicle.  Although none was involved in the sexual
assault, the vehicle came up on NCIC as a stolen vehicle out of Las Vegas.
All five were arrested.  R.P. was transferred to federal custody and
booked on attempted murder charges.  T.R. is in recovery and doing well. 
[Paul Crawford, SPR, Boulder Basin District, LAME, 4/20]

98-151 - Blue Ridge Parkway (NC/VA) - MVA with Fatality, Serious Injuries

Just before 4 a.m. on Monday, April 13th, rangers were notified of a single-
vehicle accident with one fatality and two serious injuries at Calloway Gap
on the parkway.  Rangers Ken Gochenour and Brent Pennington responded and
found numerous local fire and rescue units already on scene.  One of the
first rescue units to arrive included Mark Mallette, a park maintenance
worker who is also a volunteer fireman for the Glendale Springs Fire
Department.  A.T., 18, was ejected from the truck and died at the
scene.  T.T., her 29-year old husband, and D.M., 14, were
pinned inside the wreckage and required extrication.  Both sustained multiple
injuries and were medevaced to Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, where they
remain hospitalized.  The accident is still under investigation, but physical
evidence indicates that the truck was northbound on the parkway when the
right rear tires drifted off onto the road shoulder, the driver over-
corrected, and the truck veered across both travel lanes onto the southbound
lane road shoulder.  The driver then over-corrected again, causing the
vehicle to skid sideways back across both travel lanes and roll at least once
before coming to rest on its side against a tree.  The entire cab of the
truck was crushed and had to be cut away to allow rescuers access to the two
surviving victims.  None of the occupants were wearing seatbelts.  Excessive
speed, alcohol, and drugs may have been factors in the accident.  [Brent
Pennington, DR, Highlands District, BLRI, 4/21]  

98-152 - Lake Mead NRA (NV/AZ) - Structural Fire

Rangers noticed smoke rising from the Lakeshore Trailer Village around 5 p.m.
on April 17th.  When ranger Ryan Regnell arrived two minutes later, he found
a 50-foot, single-wide residential trailer in flames, but was able to quickly
locate the occupants and assure that they were safe.  Park fire crews
arrived, quickly knocked down the fire, contained it to the original
structure and to a storage shed on the adjacent site, and cooled down two
other trailers.  Suppression efforts were hampered by insufficient water due
to the lack of fire hydrants in the area.  The Boulder City Fire Department
was called in for water support along with the park's 3,000 gallon tender. 
The structure and its contents were a total loss; the estimated value has
been placed at $150,000.  The fire was accidental and evidently started by a
child lighting a candle.  [Paul Crawford, SPR, Boulder Basin District, LAME,
4/20]

98-153 - Arches NP (UT) - Assist to Agency

K.H. of West Jordan, Utah, was stopped by a state trooper in Grand
Junction, Colorado, on April 1st.  A routine check showed that he had a
felony warrant against him, but he sped away in his pickup truck before an
arrest could be made.  A 90-mile vehicle pursuit ensued, with speeds in
excess of 100 mph.  K.H. left I-70 north of the park and traveled cross-
country through open, rugged desert terrain toward Arches.  The truck was
eventually stopped less than two miles from the park.  Arches rangers Wendy
Howell and Karyl Yeston played a pivotal role in getting K.H.'s forward
progress halted and eventually stopped by their tactical positioning and
knowledge of the area.  Over 16 officers from five agencies and two states, a
helicopter and airplane were involved in the pursuit.  K.H., who stated
that he would rather die than go to jail, was taken into custody without
incident.  There were no injuries.  [Jim Webster, CR, ARCH, 4/20]

98-154 - Big Bend NP (TX) - Drug Smuggling

Earlier this week, national media carried a report about the crash of a small
plane loaded with 300 pounds of marijuana in a baseball field near Detroit on
the night of April 19th.  Some of the area residents who came to the
assistance of the dying pilot instead fled with bundles of marijuana.  The
plane had crossed into the United States from Mexico earlier that day.  A
ranger at Big Bend spotted it as it flew very low over the park and advised
Customs.  Three Customs aircraft began following the plane covertly.  The
pilot, who did not know he was being followed and may have been heading for
Canada, apparently attempted to land at the field because he was running low
on fuel.  The airplane was a home-built craft, made mostly of fiberglass and
wood, making it hard to track on radar.  [Associated Press, 4/20; Bob
Marriott, RAD/WASO, 4/20]

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

No entries.

OPERATIONAL NOTES

Morning Report Submissions - Due to incompatibilities between different
versions of MS Word, many of the incidents submitted for the Morning Report
prove unreadable and require either retransmission or efforts to find a
system that can read the document.  Since many people still use WordPerfect
5.1 and since MS Word documents can be saved in that format, the most
expeditious solution of this problem is to save and send your incidents in
5.1.  An even better solution is to send them as cc:Mail messages by
composing the text in the program of your choice, then saving a second
version of the document as a text file, then writing it into a cc:Mail
message.  That is how most reports are submitted.  Thanks in advance for your
assistance.  [Editor]

Draft Wilderness Directors Order - Reference Manual #41, "Wilderness
Preservation and Management," was released for a 60-day, in-service review on
April 15th.  A separate 30-day public review will be announced once the
document has been reviewed by the solicitor.  A copy of the document has been
posted on the wilderness bulletin board along with instructions on how to
print hard copies.  Comments should be sent to Jim Walters at NP-SWRO-OSFT by
June 15th.  [Jim Walters]

MEMORANDA

No entries.

EXCHANGE

No entries.

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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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