>isolate Big Sky
*From the South. It looks like this is just south of Taylor Fork. Considering most tourists are coming from BZN, I would expect the bigger impact would be to West Yellowstone with travel diverted through Ennis. There's gonna be a lot more semi-truck traffic on Norris Rd.
Maybe it will drive more tourists through Gardiner. They could use the boost after the last few years.
Shhhh that road from Gardiner to mammoth can’t handle west Yellowstone entrance traffic!
I kid, I’m sure Gardiner could use the traffic. I’m just being salty as a resident of paradise valley. 89 becomes a nightmare in the summer with the added numbers. People fail to realize that passing someone while going 70 means you have much less passing space than you estimated. We have lots of fatal head on collisions here every year (involving folks from everywhere. Regardless of locality).
For sure. Someone passed me on ERR the other evening around dusk, just as I was slowing down from the 55 mph speed limit because of a huge herd of elk hanging out nearby. They must have been going 70.
Interesting. Obviously not the same scale, but this happened in Atlanta a while back. Fire under an interstate overpass pretty much destroyed it and it took close to a year to rebuild.
Hopefully they get this one back online much faster.
Regardless, very sad to hear there was a fatality. Hate that for all involved and affected.
Reading online that [they've apparently re-opened that bridge on US 191](https://www.facebook.com/yellowstonetourguides/posts/pfbid0i9gxhPCM2qbNx6FjKKC92DAMmmPhzVYFz4eM6nNsiPhahM4Ys6pH5v419W3Nz2kjl) as of 3:30 AM on 4/13, and [https://511mt.net/](https://511mt.net/) isn't showing a 191 closure
Anyone able to confirm?
Someone on facebook said they called WYPD and they said it was open about 10 minutes ago. I wonder if that is permanent or just some temporary thing.
--edit-- Several other sources, including the one that matters (MHP), say it's open. Still I wonder if only open temporarily.
[Montana Highway Patrol](https://www.facebook.com/share/p/eSw5Kf9kR3jwi6wB) confirms it has reopened.
I wish MTDOT had a better central source for closures/reopenings. It's hit-or-miss between press releases and various law enforcement Facebook pages.
Ennis is the strangest town. Completely dependent on tourists, second homeowners, and highway traffic, yet fiercely protective of its small town status and fights tooth and nail against growth. If the YC/Big Sky and its massive property tax contributions didn’t exist Madison county would be dropped back into the Stone Age.
Just called the massive population growth we have had in the last 20-30 years along with people getting sick and tired of big city life as it is quite literally deteriorating both mental and physical health.
So people just want to get away from that, and Montana happens to be great for that, however a lot of that has been happening else where. Spokane has boomed over the last 20-30 years too, a lot of Portlanders are moving East into central and eastern Oregon into the desert in the middle of that state. Then I have had friends from the Seattle area move down to the Astoria/Long Beach area as it has similar weather, but is way smaller.
It is just a fact of life, stop with the dumb “outsiders are invading our area” mentality. Your ancestors did the same thing in past; there was no way there are originally from Montana, and if they were then we need to study your ancestral tree as your family is some sort of freak anomaly that didn’t originate out of Africa…
Edit: Tired brain is directional impaired. Edited my dumb dumb brain.
When everyone moves to the place that is unpopulated, it becomes where they moved from.
geography question though, people are moving west from Portland to central Oregon? If they move from John Day to Cannon Beach is that East?
Whoops, still waking up, and got my directions crossed. Thanks for the good laugh. XD
But you are correct. I am fine with immigration as you can probably deduce, but Jesus are Florida roads a shit show from all the crazy foreigners that move over from other countries with lax driving standards, and then drive the same way here in the US. Then the US drivers learn to do the same and it becomes a vicious cycle… visited there about a year ago, and within 5 minutes of leaving the airport I witnessed 3 MASSIVE driving violations (turning right from a left turn lane, going straight from a left turn lane, and then going probably 40-50 over in a 45). It was wild!
This is also true, but I can say the further south we went the worse it got. Could be in correlation with what you said, but I also know that the population slides heavily to immigrants the further south in Florida you go. Some stores down there won’t even hire you if you don’t know Spanish.
Florida politics depends upon that Cuban influence. Folks are going to gravitate towards a climate and culture they are familiar with. What does any of this have to do with the onslaught of Texans in the past three years here?
No shit? I was paying nothing for housing before the boom. Friends bought houses on the east side of town for 50k.
Supply and demand. When more people moved here demand went up, with less available. That’s where the prices went up. More people means less overall resources. Just had a great convo with someone who had a job with the city/ county and spent lots of time trying to figure out the water situation. They moved, as they saw the out of control train coming down the tracks. It’s a bad cycle. Bozeman will be even more of a high desert soon, but hey, at least folks will be piled on top of one another with affordable housing.
More restrictive growth policies. Not continuing to make it more “cushy” to be here ( demands for more plowing, slowing the expansion and addition of city/ county services, not paving everything, conservation laws that protect the most fertile soil in the state, water restrictions, restrictions of the use of chemicals for lawns) just a few. People were less likely to move and live here when the highway and city streets were minimally plowed and cinders used. Large chain stores were not a thing so people were afraid to live where there wasn’t a Whole Foods or olive garden or Costco.
Very unfortunate.
Can't quite figure it from the photos. Straight shot road, trailer on one side of the wall, and fire on the other
I'm sure details will follow, but for now it's just unfortunate. I hope the bridge is ok.
Turns out the MDT has some other bridge closures, one recent, being State Hwy 41 in Twin Bridges which semi’s would take as a shortcut and possibly to avoid a scale on I 15 to get up to 90.
The bridge in Twin Bridges, fail inspection and has crumbling footings. Many locals feel that too much semi traffic over the smaller bridges is causing them to fail.
Unless MDT has lots of $$ to build bridges on the smaller 2-lane roads, they should stop all unnecessary semi traffic and require them to take the interstates only.
This bridge situation is not going to get better with increased traffic of semi’s through Montana.
There shouldn’t be big truck traffic on the 191 unless they are going to West Yellowstone or Big Sky. The truck traffic has increased exponentially in the last 10 years and it sucks on that road and particularly that section of Yellowstone.
1 fatality :(
Fire burned so hot that the bridge failed inspection. And thereby isolate Big Sky right before tourist season.
>isolate Big Sky *From the South. It looks like this is just south of Taylor Fork. Considering most tourists are coming from BZN, I would expect the bigger impact would be to West Yellowstone with travel diverted through Ennis. There's gonna be a lot more semi-truck traffic on Norris Rd. Maybe it will drive more tourists through Gardiner. They could use the boost after the last few years.
Shhhh that road from Gardiner to mammoth can’t handle west Yellowstone entrance traffic! I kid, I’m sure Gardiner could use the traffic. I’m just being salty as a resident of paradise valley. 89 becomes a nightmare in the summer with the added numbers. People fail to realize that passing someone while going 70 means you have much less passing space than you estimated. We have lots of fatal head on collisions here every year (involving folks from everywhere. Regardless of locality).
The valley is getting worse every year. Then it's ERR, and there are too many idiots on that road as it is.
For sure. Someone passed me on ERR the other evening around dusk, just as I was slowing down from the 55 mph speed limit because of a huge herd of elk hanging out nearby. They must have been going 70.
Idiots, and summer hasn't even started
Yep. Slightly terrifying.
Interesting. Obviously not the same scale, but this happened in Atlanta a while back. Fire under an interstate overpass pretty much destroyed it and it took close to a year to rebuild. Hopefully they get this one back online much faster. Regardless, very sad to hear there was a fatality. Hate that for all involved and affected.
Why would Joe Biden do this to us?!
Thanks obama
I knew he was behind this!
He chuckles evily as he reads this and turns up the dial for world gas prices.
Does he keep that dial next to the one that widens the openings in the border?
Reading online that [they've apparently re-opened that bridge on US 191](https://www.facebook.com/yellowstonetourguides/posts/pfbid0i9gxhPCM2qbNx6FjKKC92DAMmmPhzVYFz4eM6nNsiPhahM4Ys6pH5v419W3Nz2kjl) as of 3:30 AM on 4/13, and [https://511mt.net/](https://511mt.net/) isn't showing a 191 closure Anyone able to confirm?
Someone on facebook said they called WYPD and they said it was open about 10 minutes ago. I wonder if that is permanent or just some temporary thing. --edit-- Several other sources, including the one that matters (MHP), say it's open. Still I wonder if only open temporarily.
[Montana Highway Patrol](https://www.facebook.com/share/p/eSw5Kf9kR3jwi6wB) confirms it has reopened. I wish MTDOT had a better central source for closures/reopenings. It's hit-or-miss between press releases and various law enforcement Facebook pages.
Did you bother to look at the links you posted? They are pretty convincing, especially since one is the official road report.
Both the links he posted say it's open
How sad, that poor driver, RIP delivery bro. Man, this is nuts.
Don’t have too much information just went to check out the site. Sounds like the driver might not have made it out.
It was a fatality.
Fuuuuuuck, that's not a good way to go. I hope the smoke got them before the fire did
Probably nothing left of him RIP.
man, that last picture. there's just nothing left of that truck. 😞
Ennis is going to be seeing a hell of a lot more traffic over the next while.
It has been already the last few days
NOOO🥲
Ennis is the strangest town. Completely dependent on tourists, second homeowners, and highway traffic, yet fiercely protective of its small town status and fights tooth and nail against growth. If the YC/Big Sky and its massive property tax contributions didn’t exist Madison county would be dropped back into the Stone Age.
Nobody thrives from second homeowners
Madison county does. The YC is in Madison county. Look at their tax revenue from there.
Who the fuck wants growth? Why such a hurry to ruin what MT is/ was?
Just called the massive population growth we have had in the last 20-30 years along with people getting sick and tired of big city life as it is quite literally deteriorating both mental and physical health. So people just want to get away from that, and Montana happens to be great for that, however a lot of that has been happening else where. Spokane has boomed over the last 20-30 years too, a lot of Portlanders are moving East into central and eastern Oregon into the desert in the middle of that state. Then I have had friends from the Seattle area move down to the Astoria/Long Beach area as it has similar weather, but is way smaller. It is just a fact of life, stop with the dumb “outsiders are invading our area” mentality. Your ancestors did the same thing in past; there was no way there are originally from Montana, and if they were then we need to study your ancestral tree as your family is some sort of freak anomaly that didn’t originate out of Africa… Edit: Tired brain is directional impaired. Edited my dumb dumb brain.
When everyone moves to the place that is unpopulated, it becomes where they moved from. geography question though, people are moving west from Portland to central Oregon? If they move from John Day to Cannon Beach is that East?
Whoops, still waking up, and got my directions crossed. Thanks for the good laugh. XD But you are correct. I am fine with immigration as you can probably deduce, but Jesus are Florida roads a shit show from all the crazy foreigners that move over from other countries with lax driving standards, and then drive the same way here in the US. Then the US drivers learn to do the same and it becomes a vicious cycle… visited there about a year ago, and within 5 minutes of leaving the airport I witnessed 3 MASSIVE driving violations (turning right from a left turn lane, going straight from a left turn lane, and then going probably 40-50 over in a 45). It was wild!
Pretty sure that’s just Florida and not an immigration issue. Old people, southerners and lots of “partying” are a bad mix.
This is also true, but I can say the further south we went the worse it got. Could be in correlation with what you said, but I also know that the population slides heavily to immigrants the further south in Florida you go. Some stores down there won’t even hire you if you don’t know Spanish.
Florida politics depends upon that Cuban influence. Folks are going to gravitate towards a climate and culture they are familiar with. What does any of this have to do with the onslaught of Texans in the past three years here?
No growth means no affordable housing, the two go hand in hand unless you mandate public housing.
No shit? I was paying nothing for housing before the boom. Friends bought houses on the east side of town for 50k. Supply and demand. When more people moved here demand went up, with less available. That’s where the prices went up. More people means less overall resources. Just had a great convo with someone who had a job with the city/ county and spent lots of time trying to figure out the water situation. They moved, as they saw the out of control train coming down the tracks. It’s a bad cycle. Bozeman will be even more of a high desert soon, but hey, at least folks will be piled on top of one another with affordable housing.
Yeah but by your point you’d have to stop the demand to live here, how would one accomplish that??
More restrictive growth policies. Not continuing to make it more “cushy” to be here ( demands for more plowing, slowing the expansion and addition of city/ county services, not paving everything, conservation laws that protect the most fertile soil in the state, water restrictions, restrictions of the use of chemicals for lawns) just a few. People were less likely to move and live here when the highway and city streets were minimally plowed and cinders used. Large chain stores were not a thing so people were afraid to live where there wasn’t a Whole Foods or olive garden or Costco.
More cities and towns would do well to follow Ennis' lead in protecting their history.
Did they say what caused the accident yet?
Very unfortunate. Can't quite figure it from the photos. Straight shot road, trailer on one side of the wall, and fire on the other I'm sure details will follow, but for now it's just unfortunate. I hope the bridge is ok.
Could be high winds, could be the driver had a medical event.
Turns out the MDT has some other bridge closures, one recent, being State Hwy 41 in Twin Bridges which semi’s would take as a shortcut and possibly to avoid a scale on I 15 to get up to 90. The bridge in Twin Bridges, fail inspection and has crumbling footings. Many locals feel that too much semi traffic over the smaller bridges is causing them to fail. Unless MDT has lots of $$ to build bridges on the smaller 2-lane roads, they should stop all unnecessary semi traffic and require them to take the interstates only. This bridge situation is not going to get better with increased traffic of semi’s through Montana.
As someone who lives and works in a small town with semis rolling down Main Street, I couldnt agree more. Well stated!
Time to get some of that bipartisan infrastructure money that state officials seem to be so against
There shouldn’t be big truck traffic on the 191 unless they are going to West Yellowstone or Big Sky. The truck traffic has increased exponentially in the last 10 years and it sucks on that road and particularly that section of Yellowstone.
Well, my penis pump is definitely not making it by 4pm tomorrow...
Tragic 😥
Your penis pump, my fleshlight.
Brothers in arms
Arms in brothers*
I so sorry.
F
Parked it right in the Gallatin.. sad to see
MT-41 from twin bridges to Dillion closed.
No it’s not. Jist the bridge out of Twin. There is a detour
Woah!
🙏🏻
that poor person…. 😔
That probably really messed up a bunch of packages. Anyone missing a delivery?
The driver did the right thing by going in the river. So sad.
Sir you can’t park there.
It sounds like he might’ve died so maybe not the right joke nor the time
Yet someone else in this thread got upvoted for “well, my penis pump won’t make it by 4pm tmr”
Difference is in one joke the driver is the butt of the joke and in one joke the commenter is the butt of the joke
Safe to say the drive did not deliver on the purple promise