00:00Blue Ridge Parkway on my bucket list. It runs nearly 50 miles from Virginia through places like
00:05Asheville, North Carolina, and here with more on the damage from there and other parts of the
00:10National Park Service and this region is the spokesperson, Naman Horn, who is joining us this
00:16morning. Thank you for your time. We want to know what's the latest on the damage along the Blue
00:20Ridge Parkway. So there was pretty substantial damage all across the region and the Blue Ridge
00:31Parkway was no different. We did have more damage in North Carolina than we did in Virginia and we
00:37were able to pretty quickly reopen about 200 miles of parkway in Virginia. Currently nothing in North
00:45Carolina is open. There are several areas along the parkway where there's structural damage on
00:51the road. We're still assessing that. There's a lot of trees down on the road. Right now we realize
00:56the parkway is a critical artery for community connectivity and we're trying to focus on areas
01:01of the parkway that are most important for the community to get around and do their business. But
01:05currently we are encouraging folks in North Carolina to not try and get on the parkway. The
01:10whole parkway in this state is closed and we thank you for your patience as you wait for us
01:16to get this open. Yeah I know it'll be quite the process to get everything back up and running.
01:21What about damage within the National Parks? Are parts of the Great Spokane Mountain Parks closed?
01:29Right now there are a number of parks closed across the region
01:33but the Blue Ridge Parkway did sustain the most damage from the parks from hailing.
01:41And for those that are trying to take that trip I know like I said it's on the bucket list for a
01:46lot of folks. What's the best way to find out if you can go to that part of the National Park or
01:51if you need to reschedule? Absolutely for any National Park if you go to nps.gov and you can
01:58search by state and you can search by park and you can pull up that park's website. There's also a
02:02National Park Service app on phones or smart devices that you can get and those will all have
02:07current information about openings and closures. We always advise to check before you go you don't
02:13want to show up to a place and have it be closed or have no water or other services available. So
02:18know before you go check our website give us a call but once we get open we'd love to have folks
02:24back we realize how important these parks are to our communities. And I have one more quick question
02:29how are the park systems how are they trying to help the people around because obviously the
02:34devastation is just beyond the park itself. Absolutely that's a great question. There are
02:42of course a ton of different agencies federal state and local agencies that are working on
02:47providing help for people. The Park Service our focus is of course the National Parks
02:53and as I said before we recognize that the Blue Ridge Parkway is an incredible artery for people
02:58to get around and just get about their normal lives and so our focus is getting access to
03:04those people and opening up what sections where we can that provide that critical access.
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