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Post by Poor Richard on Jun 7, 2023 15:35:39 GMT -7
Cleanup work progresses near Red Lodge following 2022 historic flooding KBZK reports "Some 43,000 plus cubic yards of debris has been pulled from Rock Creek near Red Lodge since crews began work on April 17. Now workers with two traveling debris removal companies are moving on to Park County, where a total of 100,000 cubic yards of debris is expected to be removed.
It is an epic cleanup project following Montana’s 500-year floods of 2022 that ripped homes from riverbanks, tore apart roads and bridges, and downed thousands of trees.
A vegetative debris pile sits between Red Lodge and Roberts on the side of the highway, constantly growing and shrinking as debris is burned in a clean burning incinerator to save room in the landfill. Homes, household items, roadway material, and anything deemed not appropriate for incineration, along with the ash, is destined for the Billings Regional Landfill.
“I'd gone to Billings for a dental appointment in the morning and when I came back, we didn’t have any trees,” said Brooke Flynn, a Red Lodge flood victim.
One year later, many folks who lost their water-front trees or worse, entire homes, are still in the thick of it, rebuilding and reinforcing river banks, right in the middle of spring run-off.
“Right now we’ve hired someone to make a sloped bank that protects our property,” said Flynn.
The official Army Corps of Engineers permit says Flynn's property lost more than 200 cubic yards, or about 10 horizontal feet, of her lawn as Rock Creek undercut the bank.
"We actually had a small building that got jammed out in the middle of the creek and funneled the current into our bank,” said Flynn while pointing off her deck overlooking Rock Creek. “I don't think we would have had that much of a problem if someone’s shed hadn’t floated down the creek and got stuck out there. I've never seen anything like that.”
The aftermath is devastating but not debilitating with multiple government agencies coming together for what so far is a $3 million clean-up project, charged by the cubic yard and tackled by two traveling contractors that specialize in disaster recovery across the U.S.
“We’re finding a lot of significant debris piles from all the trees that have piled up, houses that were washed down river, bridges, household items,” said Jake Ganieany, Montana DES Bureau Chief Recovery and Mitigation Response.
“They have an excavator which has come up and down the creek and loosened debris out. I’ve seen it half a dozen times at least,” said Flynn.
The massive Montana cleanup project is expected to be finished by fall, but even so the fallout from a 500-year flood has much longer-lasting impacts, bringing out the best in humanity.
“I think really how the town helped each other,” said Flynn. “There still are churches helping people pay their rent, you know if they’ve been displaced. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing we hope, but we know the community can pull together.”" |
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Post by Poor Richard on Jun 7, 2023 18:18:38 GMT -7
Flood Recovery: A family reflects one year post-rescue KBZK reports "
This month marks one year since the historic flooding of the Yellowstone River, where livelihoods, homes, and roads were in ruin in its wake.
Jason Mascari and his family live with a postcard-worthy view of the Yellowstone River, and in the past, they have seen their fair share of serious flooding. A flood wall is in place on their property, but Mascari says that he experienced nothing like the flooding of 2022.
“Imagine water just rushing across this—waist high or so—as it’s coming downstream and flowing past the neighbor’s house and it just keeps rising,” Mascari said.
The stretch of dirt road to the Mascari home became a rushing river as Search and Rescue teams jumped in jet boats to evacuate neighbors and dogs.
“It’s hard to believe that those guys were having a hard time getting their jet boat even out here—the water was moving so fast downstream,” Mascari said.
Mascari said that the first floor of his home was destroyed by the flood and the backyard was packed with mud. Walking down the road today, Mascari explains how one neighbor’s house was ruined beyond repair and had to be removed altogether.
“My neighbor’s home, which was unfortunately no longer here due to the flood that was so significant to them—they had to tear down their house, hitch is pretty heart-breaking. I mean that could have been us right?” Mascari said.
In the end, Mascari credits keeping a positive outlook amidst the flooding river as an important part of moving forward toward the future." |
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Post by Poor Richard on Jun 8, 2023 13:56:41 GMT -7
Yellowstone National Park still working to repair June 2022 flood damage KBZK reports "Yellowstone National Park is still working to repair damage caused by record flooding in June of 2022. While there is a lot that is new, much work still needs to be finished to restore what was lost.
A video shot by a park ranger last June showed the immense power of the flood waters that swept through Yellowstone. In the short clip, released by the Park Service, you can see a wall of muddy water sweeping down the Lamar River knocking over 50-foot-tall trees in seconds, shooting streams of water into the air, and slicing off huge segments of the river bank.
You can still see a demonstration of that destruction, just a short walk off the north entrance road. It’s only about a quarter mile down the old, now abandoned Gardiner Canyon Road. Just after passing a parking lot along the Gardiner River, the pavement drops away, eroded by the force of the water last June. Now, a new road snakes its way up to Mammoth, avoiding the old Gardiner Canyon route while offering sharp turns and stunning views.
“We made the best out of one of the worst possible situations," said Park Superintendent Cam Sholly in an interview with MTN News.
He ticked off the recovery efforts in just the past year; “A park that’s reopened on the north end, communities that had a crushing impact from the flood last summer, Gardiner, Silver Gate, and Cooke City especially, reconnected.”
Large parts of the northeast entrance road are now rebuilt but some is still under construction.
Sholly said of the road through the Lamar Canyon, “That continues to see erosion from the river down below. A contractor will be blasting next week to get that road moved in.”
Just a couple of miles east of the heavy equipment working in the canyon, Marsha Dolan of Maysville Missouri watched an eagle nest, holding a young bird. She stepped away from her spotting scope and said, “I think they’ve done a tremendous job of fixing this so people can still come.”
Sholly told us that work wasn’t easy. He said, “We set very aggressive goals last year and if we hadn’t gotten them done, we’d still be closed.”
A hillside, a bit farther along the Lamar now sports new pavement. A hillside was pushed back so that the road could be moved away from the eroded edge of the river. Last fall, that hillside was just covered with heavy equipment working to beat the onset of winter snow. Now, the work is finished and the newly seeded dirt is just waiting for the grass to start growing.
Marsha Dolan remarked, “The amount of work that has gone on since last July to maybe October is just unbelievable.”
Then of course, there’s that new road with the wide-open views connecting Gardiner with Mammoth. It’s a slow, winding trip, leading some to complain that it’s difficult to drive.
Hearing that, Sholly shows some rare irritation. He said, “For those that don’t like it, I guarantee they like it better than having no road.”
Towards the northeast corner of Yellowstone where that construction work continues, there are sometimes long waits at the construction zones. In spite of that, Sholly said complaints are few.
Gary Dolan, Marsha’s husband said he didn’t mind waiting to get into the Lamar Valley. He said, “We’d be glad to do that just for the privilege. It’s all better than them closing it completely down and we couldn’t come this year.”
Sholly said the park is making an effort to accommodate visitors. He added, “[We’re] trying to minimize those impacts on visitors to the best degree possible but, you know, this park isn’t going to fix itself and we’ve got to, that Lamar Canyon project, has got to get done quickly. We’ve got to get that pushed in.”
There are construction waits just outside Mammoth on the Gardiner River until the end of June. Also on the Yellowstone River bridge just east of Roosevelt Junction, and in the Lamar Canyon. Work is set to finish soon on a sewage treatment system for Mammoth so the hotel and restaurants there may reopen.
Mike Keller, General Manager of Yellowstone National Park Lodges suffered through last summer, fall winter, and now the spring season, unable to operate the big hotel or restaurants in Mammoth. That’s because the sewer line carrying wastewater from Mammoth to a treatment plant in Gardiner was lost along with the road in the flooding. Talking about the restoration work, he visibly brightened and said, “To think we’re doing this only one year after the historic flooding events of last year, is nothing short of amazing.”
“Everyone that played a part, and that includes the public that supported us, really should feel good about where we are,” said Sholly.
Keller talked about how visitors are reacting to all the work. He said, “Honestly, a lot of amazement over the road between Gardner to Mammoth. That definitely highlights a lot of people's experiences. The North entrance being closed pretty much all of last summer. Then they did reopen in October of last year at the very end of October, but there's very small visitation in the winter compared to the high volumes of visitation in the summer. People coming in on that road and being up high, the different views, the panoramic scenery that is provided from the route has generated a lot of comments. And then for folks that are going out towards Cook City, the same thing, where the road washed out of Trot Lake, where there was significant washout along Sotheby Creek, and just the recovery that's taken place out there. To the normal visitor for a lot of folks, you might even recognize some of the new roads and the new alignments that have been put in place. They did such a great job of kind of, you know, just restoring the road with, but maintaining the natural integrity of the area.”
He added that he’s optimistic that work on a temporary treatment facility in Mammoth will soon be completed allowing him to reopen the hotel and restaurants before the end of June so the concession operator, Xanterra, can salvage this summer’s season.
In spite of all the damage and all the road work, there are some things that survived. Just east of the Trout Lake trail parking lot, on the south side of the road, sits a huge chunk of petrified tree. Resplendent in orange, brown, and cream colors, it’s resting just a few feet off the road.
Sholly told us he doesn’t like to think in terms of legacy. But he did have some ideas about the response to the June 2022 flooding. He said, “You look at, like I said, how everybody came together, the teamwork involved from Washington to the states, the counties, communities, the team here in Yellowstone, Federal Highways, the contractors, good weather. We had a lot of things fall into place. I've not seen, you know, I started here in 1990. I've worked in a lot of assignments across the country. I've not seen an incident that large, have almost no bureaucracy. Everybody understood the importance of coming together. Everybody understood the fact that if we didn't get the work done when we did going into the fall that it was going to significantly alter everyone's world around here for the winter and going into the summer.”
In all, it will cost nearly a billion dollars, over many years to repair all the damage from last year’s flooding. But, it now looks like that work will be completed and roads will be better able to withstand future floods and other forces of nature." |
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Post by Poor Richard on Jun 8, 2023 13:58:34 GMT -7
Mudslides force temporary closure of Yellowstone National Park east entrance KBZK reports "
The week's torrential rain caused three mudslides Tuesday night that closed the road to Yellowstone National Park's east entrance for most of Wednesday.
Two smaller mudslides were able to be cleared, but one 300-foot wide slide closed the highway in the Shoshone National Forest all Tuesday night.
One lane opened Wednesday. Crews have been working all day to clear the slide.
However, the mud keeps coming down and it's carrying large tree trunks with it, making clean-up efforts difficult.
Park officials say the slide, which is three miles outside of Yellowstone, carried one car down the road and wiped out an access road to cabins.
Crews expect to remain on site all night to keep one of the lanes open.
Official said heavy rain in the mountains caused the already saturated soil to flow across the highway." |
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