AI-Summary – News For Tomorrow
Amid the federal government shutdown, some popular national parks in the Mid-Atlantic region are partially reopening facilities just in time for a busy weekend. Advocacy groups, private donations, and state funding are enabling the reopening of visitor centers, bathrooms, stores, restaurants, and shuttle services at Shenandoah National Park (VA), Harpers Ferry and New River Gorge National Parks (WV), and Gettysburg National Military Park (PA). West Virginia claims to be the first state to fully reopen its national parks through a donor agreement. While Shenandoah’s gates remain open, entrance fees aren’t collected, and visitors are warned about potentially delayed emergency services.
News summary provided by Gemini AI.
Some services at some of the most popular national parks in the mid-Atlantic region are re-opening, according to a parks advocacy organization, just in time for one of the busiest weekends of the year.
On Skyline Drive in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, two bustling facilities, the Dickey Ridge and Harry F. Byrd Sr. Visitors Centers, are re-opening, along with park stores, restaurants and bathrooms, said Ed Stierli, Mid-Atlantic senior regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association, a non-partisan advocacy group.
Both visitors’ centers have been closed until now amid the federal government shutdown. Stierli said the re-openings of some facilities are being funded by advocacy groups, private donations and in some cases, state money.
Other parks in the region are also re-opening some facilities and services. At Harpers Ferry National Historical Park and New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia, visitors’ centers, bathrooms and shuttle bus operations are re-opening under the same arrangements, according to Stierli.
West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced last week that his state was the “first state in the nation” to sign a donor agreement with the National Park Service to “fully re-open its national parks amid the federal government shutdown.” The Gettysburg Foundation is paying for the visitors’ center and museum at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania to stay open, Stierli said.
At Shenandoah National Park, “the gates are still wide open,” Stierli said, but staff are not collecting entrance fees and are warning people that services such as emergency response could be slowed.
