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Transcript/Script Gardiner Flood Recovery
HEADLINE: Yellowstone, Surrounding Communities Still Gasping After Historic Flood
TEASER: Southern Montana businesses that depend on tourist traffic from the famous national park are struggling this season
PUBLISHED AT: 09/18/2022 at 3:04 pm
BYLINE: Natasha Mozgovaya
CONTRIBUTOR:
DATELINE: Gardiner, Montana
VIDEOGRAPHER: Natasha Mozgovaya, Scott Stearns
VIDEO EDITOR: Natasha Mozgovaya
SCRIPT EDITORS: Reifenrath, Mia Bush
VIDEO SOURCE (S): VOA, Parker Manning (distributed by AP,) Yellowstone National Park
PLATFORMS (mark with X): WEB __ TV __ RADIO __
TRT: 3:17
VID APPROVED BY: mia
TYPE:
EDITOR NOTES:))
((INTRO))
[[Three months after a historic flood submerged southern Montana, Yellowstone National Park and surrounding communities are still recovering from its effects. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya has the story. ]]
((Reporter on camera, YNP North entrance))
((Natasha Mozgovaya, VOA News)
Since Yellowstone National Park was created in 1872, this area in southern Montana has served as its main entrance.
((NARRATOR)) ((flood archive broll credit: Yellowstone National Park Archives))
Gardiner, a small mountain town at the North Entrance of the park, relies heavily on tourism. This year, the local businesses missed the season because of unprecedented flooding that ravaged the area in June.
(00:04:54 - 00:05:28)
((Sarah Ondrus, Paradise Adventure Company Owner))
"I've never experienced something like this. The rain was falling; it felt like forever. It just kept coming and coming and coming, which then was melting our snow melt. So together it just made this huge flume of water overnight."
((NARRATOR)) ((Broll credit / house swept by the river: Parker Manning))
Piping is all that is left of a house that was swept down the Yellowstone River.
The flood also destroyed major infrastructure in the national park. The collapse of a road closed the North and Northeast gates for the rest of the summer.
((Cam Sholly, Yellowstone National Park Superintendent)) ((Flood broll credit: Yellowstone National Park Archives))
“Yellowstone historically did not have a lot of floods. And there was not really any warning that this flood was coming. // But I think the team here couldn’t have handled it better. I mean, the fact that without power for 40 hours, evacuating the park, 10,000 visitors within about 30 hours; doing the damage assessments, getting temporary repairs done all across the park."
((NARRATOR))
Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly says the North entrance to the park is scheduled to reopen in mid-October, when upgrades are completed on Old Gardiner Road, which became an alternative route for the damaged riverside road.
For local businesses, the prolonged closure meant loss of income. This season, Sarah Ondrus' new hand-painted teepees stood mostly empty. Her other business, a rafting company, is down from 20 to 30 boats a day to about 5.
(00:00:47 - 00:00:57)
((Sarah Ondrus, Paradise Adventure Company Owner))
"Unfortunately, with what has happened with the flood, we've pretty much lost all our business, and I lost about three employees from here just because we didn't have enough work for them."
((NARRATOR))
Frank LaMotta and his girlfriend, Ariel Rodriguez, moved to the area about two years ago to work at a local hotel. The flood, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, added to their challenges, but they have no plans to leave the area.
[ 00:07:15 - 00:07:42 ]
((Frank LaMotta, Wonderland Cafe & Lodge Manager)))
"This is a very special community. And if it wasn't, a lot more people would have left by now. But we all put our heads together and, you know, make it work. So our community is stronger, but our economy is struggling."
((NARRATION))
Some tourists were determined to come to Gardiner despite the logistical inconvenience. Mary Haag and Jim Zweighaft married in Yellowstone 32 years ago.
[ 00:00:08 - 00:00:52 ]
((Mary Haag, Tourist)) ((Flood broll credit: Yellowstone National Park Archives))
"We were devastated. We saw the videos and knew that the park would be impacted so highly with all the millions of people that come here in the summer, including our own plans in the park. But if we can get in by our bicycles and support the town of Gardiner by being here and having, you know, dinner or something, we think that's a good thing to do."
((NARRATION))
Reconstruction efforts in Yellowstone might last for years, but park officials see a silver lining — an opportunity to better prepare the national park for climate-change challenges.
((Natasha Mozgovaya, VOA News, Gardiner, Montana))
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