Yellowstone National Park employees led 10,000 visitors to safety this week as storms washed away roads and bridges, while nearby residents escaped as their homes were battered by mudslides and flooding brought on by record rainfall and melting snow.
Billings, a southern Montana city home to nearly 120,000 people, asked residents to conserve water after flooding shut down the local water plant, according to a Wednesday press release.
The park will be closed for the rest of the week as officials brace for more flooding in four to five days, when the forecast calls for rain and high temperatures that could melt the remaining foot of snow on Yellowstone’s mountains.
Here are some scenes of the damage:
Credit…Matthew Brown/Associated Press
Residents of Red Lodge, Mont., a town northeast of Yellowstone, cleared mud, water and debris from its main street on Tuesday.
Floods washed part of North Entrance Road into the Gardner River, near the entrance of Yellowstone National Park.
A house in Red Lodge was pulled into Rock Creek by raging floodwaters. Officials said more than 100 houses in the town had flooded.
Patrick Grey standing in the floodwaters around his home in Livingston, Mont., north of Yellowstone.
A home south of Livingston was surrounded by flood water.
The northern half of the park, which sustained the most damage, will likely remain closed for the remainder of the summer travel season.
