Chaos at national parks ahead of spring break

this morning as Millions gear up to spend spring break at some of the nation's most treasured Parks from Yos to the Grand Canyon a warning from Park officials that the Deep government job Cuts could have a noticeable impact on your experience the visitors are not going to be able to do the things they want you know if you want to bring your family to yede and can't camp or it takes 4 hours to get into the park what kind of experience is that nearly a thousand Park employees were laid off on Valentine's day and some Ripple effects are already being felt from longer lines to cut hours to close visitor centers and cancel tours we had an experience for 10 options we only did like four the National Park Service says more than 325 million people visited these sites in 2023 up 4% from the year prior but now officials say the Staffing shortages will make keeping the area's pristine and visits running smoothly more challenging in my mind it's a crisis if it's employees that are gone I'm not sure how the park could stay open some Travelers and local businesses are bracing for a spring shake up businesses that are here in Baker certainly rely on tourism and travelers so we are unsure what that's going to look like this season I was on lunch on February 14th um and got a call from my supervisor and just had to be out and done by 5:00 p.m. and so was a Mad Dash Ben sheves is one of the park employees who recently lost his job people were working overtime uh to provide the best experience and they're already struggling to do that and part of that was just a lack of resources and so now it's just like they have even less of that experts say if you're planning to Traverse the parks this spring to be patient and over prepare there's going to be a big imbalance between the number of people who are going to the parks and the amount of staff that can help them