CODY, Wyoming (Archyde.com) – Montana Governor Greg Gianforte declared a statewide state of disaster on Tuesday after days of record rainfall caused flooding, mudslides and unprecedented rockfall in the Yellowstone National Park area.
The record flooding and landslides prompted park officials on Tuesday to close all five entrances to Yellowstone for the first time since the catastrophic wildfires that ravaged the area in 1988.
Authorities were also scrambling to evacuate visitors stranded in the park, which is expected to remain closed to the public until at least midweek.
No casualties were reported, but gripping video broadcast by NBC News shows a riverside home washed away by torrential Yellowstone.
Rapidly melting snow and heavy rains had caused “severe flooding, destroying homes, washing away roads and bridges, and leaving residents without electricity and running water,” Greg Gianforte said in a statement.
According to the US Weather Service, the waters of the Yellowstone River have exceeded record flood levels measured more than a century ago by almost a meter.
(Report Ruffin Prevost; French version Camille Raynaud)