“500-Year Flood” along the Yellowstone River drainage destroys homes, roads, and prompts the closure of Yellowstone National Park On June 13th, videos of the catastrophic flooding event began surfacing across all media platforms. Near Gardiner, the Tom Miner bridge washed away and an onlooker was there to capture the moment. The Absaroka-Beartooth mountains on the border of Montana/Wyoming received the first heavy snowfall of the winter in April. Over the past week, torrential showers coupled with a sudden spike in temperatures accelerated runoff. This created a “perfect storm” in terms of snowmelt along the Yellowstone River, the longest undammed river in the Continental US. Mudslides and water are surging down both flanks of the 944,000-acre Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness and all entrances…