NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

MORNING REPORT

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

INCIDENTS

Cumberland Gap NHP

Winter Storm Traps Visitors In Cars, Causes Damage

A storm began dropping snow on the park last Friday afternoon. By 8 p.m., the short stretch of Route 25E through the Cumberland Gap Tunnel was blocked by vehicle accidents, and reports were arriving of visitors trapped by downed trees on Route 988 through the park. While rangers cleared the highway to allow snowplows to clear the road, a team of maintenance employees and rangers cut their way through more than a hundred downed trees to reach the visitors. Several park buildings were damaged and lost electrical power, but there were no injuries to either visitors or staff. Maintenance and contract crews resumed efforts to clear damage on Saturday morning. Significant portions of the park remain closed pending cleanup, and power was still out as of Sunday night. [Dirk Wiley, Chief Ranger]

OTHER NEWS

The following stories are among those in today's edition of InsideNPS:

Clara Barton NHS - The Park Museum Management Program has released a new virtual museum exhibit on Clara Barton, prepared in collaboration with the park.

Grand Teton NP - Grand Teton NP biologists - in collaboration with Yellowstone NP and Teton Science Schools - began a survey last summer to develop baseline data on the local population of American pika, deemed a good indicator species for evaluating the impacts of climate change. Photo.

Everglades NP - Everglades National Park hosted its first-ever fire media workshop in conjunction with the Shark Valley Loop prescribed burn on Wednesday, December 16th. Photo.

Lassen Volcanic NP - Dan Jones will retire this year after 29 years working for the National Park Service. He started his career as a mule packer in Yosemite and will wrap up after 17 years at Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Intermountain Region - David Conlin, an 11-year veteran of the National Park Service , has been named chief of Submerged Resources Center in suburban Denver. Photo.

To see these and other stories posted on InsideNPS (or NPS Digest, its public version), click on one or the other of the following links (please note that not all stories in the former appear in the latter): NPS employees: HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index" http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index ; non-NPS employees: HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/

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NPS incident submission standards can be found at the following web site:

HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/waso/custompages.cfm?prg=45&id=8728&lv=2&pgid=3504" http://inside.nps.gov/waso/custompages.cfm?prg=45&id=8728&lv=2&pgid=3504

Prepared by the Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services, Washington Office, with the support of the Office of the Chief Information Officer. Edited by Bill Halainen ( HYPERLINK "mailto:Bill_Halainen@nps.gov" Bill_Halainen@nps.gov).

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