Yellowstone National Park is, in many ways, a perfect place to view the sheer power of water. Water carved most of its grand geography. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, for instance, is a 24-mile long, 800-feet deep canyon dug by roaring waterfalls and the glaciers that came before. The famous geysers are all the evidence of what happens when water insists on coexisting with a volcano. The 2-million acre park has over 600 lakes, more than 20 rivers and countless creeks, and more than 250 waterfalls.
It is undeniably a place shaped by water.
And now reshaped. Perhaps permanently.
On Tuesday, heavy rain and melting mountain snow dumped into the Yellowstone, Stillwater, and Clarks Fork rivers, causing a rise of an average of 6 feet in only 24 hours. The volume of the Yellowstone river reached an all-time high, since recording began over a century ago.
The roaring rivers destroyed roads in and around the park, causing a complete evacuation of park guests, some by helicopter. The north half of the park is now considered entirely inaccessible, and will probably not be reclaimed this season. Whole miles of roadway and dozens of bridges have been demolished, all in just over a day.
In Gardiner, Montana, the small town that serves as the north gate to Yellowstone, flooding has knocked out power and washed riverside homes away, including a multifamily home housing park rangers and their families. In Red Lodge, over 200 homes were flooded and many made uninhabitable by ground erosion.
The same flooding that’s doing its best to take Yellowstone National Park off the maps is wrecking havoc across Montana, and the governor has declared an official state of emergency in response. Dozens of towns, including Gardiner and Red Lodge, have no power or water, and the town of Livingston had to evacuate its hospital.
Photo: Shutterstock