Send a message now and tell Congress to support disaster relief for America's national parks!
Extreme weather events are happening across the country, including raging wildfires at Yosemite, record-breaking drought at Lake Mead, and devastating flooding at Yellowstone.
More frequent and more intense natural disasters are challenging an underfunded National Park Service – if disaster relief is delayed much longer, parks may be forced to delay critical repair projects simply to address the damage done at Yellowstone.
Congress must swiftly pass disaster funding for our national parks so that Yellowstone, Yosemite, Lake Mead and many more parks can start to rebuild their roads, bridges and buildings in ways that ensure public access, protect outstanding park resources and prepares them for the next hundred years.
Climate change is happening right before our eyes and the effects are only becoming more frequent and severe.
We watched catastrophic flooding at Yellowstone National Park. Heavy flooding, rockslides and mudslides demolished roads and bridges and damaged infrastructure throughout Yellowstone. Park staff are still assessing the full damage, but it could take the park and surrounding communities months, maybe even years to fully recover.
For years, the National Park Service has been operating on shoestring budgets while dealing with decreases in staffing and decaying infrastructure during a time of record visitation. On top of these challenges, parks are dealing with the intensifying threats to resources from extreme weather; parks are burning, flooding, melting, and eroding before our eyes.
This type of damage is nothing new. Extreme weather events are happening across the country, including wildfires at Yosemite, drought at Lake Mead and Glen Canyon, and flooding at Voyageurs and Death Valley. This is an alarming trend and our parks are struggling... just like our communities.
Congress must swiftly pass disaster funding for our national parks so that Yellowstone, Yosemite, Denali, Lake Mead and many more parks can start to rebuild their roads, bridges and buildings, and do so in ways that modernizes and prepares them for the next hundred years.
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