Yellowstone National Park has been ravaged by flooding over the last several days.
In just days, dramatic flooding could forever alter the human footprint on the park's terrain and the communities that have grown around it. The historic floodwaters that raged through Yellowstone this week, tearing out bridges and pouring into nearby homes, pushed a popular fishing river off course — possibly permanently — and may force roadways nearly torn away by torrents of water to be rebuilt in new places.
"I've heard this is a 1,000-year event, whatever that means these days. They seem to be happening more and more frequently," he said. "It's a Yellowstone town, and it lives and dies by tourism, and this is going to be a pretty big hit," he said."They're looking to try to figure out how to hold things together."
The water toppled telephone poles, knocked over fences and carved deep fissures in the ground through a neighborhood of hundreds of houses. Electricity was restored by Tuesday, but there was still no running water in the affected neighborhood. "Will Yellowstone have a repeat of this in five or even 50 years? Maybe not, but somewhere will have something equivalent or even more extreme," he said.
Mark Taylor, owner and chief pilot of Rocky Mountain Rotors, said his company had airlifted about 40 paying customers over the past two days from Gardiner, including two women who were"very pregnant."