Beauty and the Beast
I received this email yesterday from a Park Service member of a committee I'm on. This bodes ill for the tourist season of Leaf Lookers soon upon us. Seems the Parkway will be out in a few places, and devasted along many miles. All the more serious with Hurricane Ivan likely to be here by the latter half of the coming week.
The Parkway received a severe (catastrophic???) hit from Hurricane Frances over the last two days, almost all of the damage occuring in North Carolina. Six major rock slides, loss of the roadway in four separate places, serious damage to two visitor centers and a number of campgrounds and developed areas. Very preliminary estimates are $6 million dollars and a year's worth of cleanup and repair with Federal Highway Administration assistance. An FHA response team will be in the park early next week to make more accurate assessments.