Article Author:
The Associated Press
Jacques Billeaud And Michael R. Brad
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hundreds of hotel guests trapped by flash floods in Death Valley National Park have since I was able to escape by car. Crews cleared trails in rocks and mud, but flood-damaged and debris-choked roads were expected to remain closed until next week.
According to the National Park Service. , Navy and California Highway Patrol helicopters conduct aerial searches for vehicles stranded in remote areas, but nothing is found. However, it may take several days to assess the damage. His more than 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) of roads span 3.4 million acres (1.3 million hectares) in the park near the California-Nevada state line.
No injuries were reported from Friday's record rains. Park rained 1.46 inches (3.71 cm) in the Furnace Creek area. This is about 75% of what the region normally gets in a year, and is above the record set for the entire month of August.
Since 1936, only April 15, 1988, has had more rain, with 1.47 inches (3.73 cm), park officials said.
Nicky Jones, a restaurant worker who lives in the hotel with his colleague, said it was raining when he went out to breakfast on Friday morning. By the time she returned, the water had pooled rapidly and reached the doorway of the room.
"I couldn't believe it," said Jones. "Never in my life have I seen water rise so fast." I put my luggage on the bed and put a towel on the bottom of the doorway to keep the water from running in. they will be flooded.
"People around me said they had never seen anything this bad. They had worked here for a while," Jones said. I was.
Their room was safe, but his five or six other rooms in the hotel were flooded. The carpets in those rooms were later torn out.
Highway 190 – a highway through the park – is expected to reopen by Tuesday between Furnace Creek and Pahrump, Nevada, officials said.
Park employees stranded on closed roads also continue to evacuate to designated locations, except in emergencies, officials said.
John Surlin, a photographer for the Arizona-based adventure company, said he witnessed the flood while perched on a hillside rock trying to photograph the lightning. A storm is approaching.
"The sound of the rocks coming down the mountain was unbelievable," he said in a phone interview Friday afternoon.
Most areas have receded, leaving thick layers of mud and gravel. About 60 vehicles were partially buried in mud and debris. There were numerous reports of road damage, and residential waterways in the Cow Creek area of the park were broken in multiple places. About 20 palm trees fell on the road near an inn, and some employees' residences were also damaged.
"The severity and widespread nature of this rainfall will take time to rebuild and reopen everything," park manager Mike Reynolds said in a statement.
55} The storm followed extensive flooding in a park 120 miles (193 kilometers) northeast of Las Vegas earlier this week, after flooding mud and debris from flash floods that hit western Nevada and northern Arizona. Some roads were closed on Monday.The rain started around 2 a.m. on Friday, according to Thurlyn, who lives in Chandler, Arizona and has been visiting the park since 2016.
Said Sirlin, the lead his guide for his Incredible Weather Adventures, which began tracking storms in Minnesota and the Highlands in the 1990s.
"There was a lot of laundry running a few feet deep. Probably three or four feet of rock covering the road," he said.
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Velvet reported from Phoenix. Contributed by his AP reporter Scott Sonar from Reno, Nevada, and his AP radio correspondent Julie Walker from New York.