In October of 2015 Death Valley National Park
experienced massive flash flooding.
There were huge massive impacts to roads
throughout the park as well as Scotty's Castle.
It took out the water, sewer, electric, telecom,
gas, all of the utility systems at the castle
as well as impacting some of the facilities here.
All of Grapevine canyon
from Grapevine ranger station past
Scotty's Castle all the way to the
Nevada border that road has been
completely annihilated.
Not just like pavement fell off like it dug it out and
washed it and flushed it out into the
desert miles and miles you'll find
pieces of road and other debris.
Scotty's Castle is such an important part
of the history of Death Valley National Park
and when national parks are set
aside they are set aside by Congress forever.
It's meant that these places
will be preserved for our children and
our children's children to enjoy so when
something impacts Scotty's Castle or any
other part of the national park it's our
job to assess how that would be best put
in place for the future so that people
can enjoy that forever.
When this happened nobody questioned the investment
that needed to be made to restore Scotty's Castle.
Not one single time has
anybody said to me maybe we should just
leave it that way and just that's just
what happens a flood comes in it it
destroys a bunch of Scotty's Castle and
we're going to leave it nobody has ever that.
What they said it how can we
get it fixed how can we get it fixed
sooner how do we raise money to make this happen.
I've been kind of blown away
by both the public and within the Park Service
in absolutely no hesitation
supporting the restoration of Scotty's Castle
and getting it restored and
getting it back open to the public.
The next steps for restoration of
Scotty's Castle, once the immediate
debris was shovel down and removed was
to put together a restoration plan and
recognize that the priceless museum
collection that's typically stored at
Scotty's Castle needed to be crated up
and moved out to somewhere safe because
the buildings and utilities have been compromised.
W e're going to work on a
permanent restoration to the power
the sewer the water the telecom and the gas
systems as well as the HVAC systems
the heating and cooling all of six of
them were completely destroyed by the flood.
We'll be able to fix Scotty's Castle
we will be able to fix the visitor center
we will be able to fix the offices
and get those restored and put back then
we're going to move the collection back
and we should be able to open it back up for tours.
And we're thinking about three years.
Obviously there's a lot of financial
challenges with all of that but we have
tentatively found a way to fund portions
of it we have about one-third of the
recovery will be funded by entrance fees
that visitors pay when they come to
Death Valley National Park specifically
Death Valley entrance fees and in fact
we got a special waiver to retain
one hundred percent of those in the park for
the duration of the recovery at Scotty's Castle.
Scotty's Castle to me represents the
spirit of Death Valley National Park.
It's a unique interesting cultural
resource but also when you look into the
lives of Death Valley Scotty and the
Johnson family it has all of the
intrigue it deals with mining and with
cons and with investments and the rich
cultural history found in Death Valley
National Park is represented here at
Scotty's Castle.
People love Scotty's Castle
people love National Parks and people love
Death Valley National Park and Scotty's Castle
is an integral important part of
Death Valley and Death Valley's history.