Yosemite finally open, but Highway 140 will be closed this weekend. Businesses upset
Business owners are rankled at PG&E for closing Highway 140 this weekend after fires have already hurt the Mariposa County economy.
Yosemite National Park officials announced Wednesday that a section of the highway, which is also called El Portal Road, will be shut down between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It will open during the lunch hour each of those days.
It’s summer so Yosemite is at its busiest time for tourists, according to Liz Skelton, who owns the Yosemite Blue Butterfly Inn with her husband. Closing the road on the weekend smacks of bad planning, she said on Thursday.
“We are just now recovering from astronomical economic loss in this county,” she said. “They could have fixed these lines last week when the park was closed. Why did they choose a weekend? I don’t understand.”
Highway 140 was closed for about three weeks earlier this year while fire crews fought the 96,901-acre Ferguson Fire, which was contained last week, according to fire officials.
“This is our busiest time, and people are going to feel like it’s safe now to come back,” Skelton said. “People canceled up here clear into September because they were fearful of smoke and fire.”
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is getting to the work as fast as it could, according to spokesperson Denny Boyle. The type of power lines used in Yosemite are different than what’s typically used so they had to gather materials from the East Coast, he said.
“There’s never really going to be a good time to do. We need to get it done before the Labor Day weekend,” Boyle said. “We do have a tremendous amount of repair work going on in the Carr Fire area.”
The Carr Fire is in Shasta County.
The Yosemite terrain also makes the power lines harder to get to, he said, so crew members have to be assisted by heavy machinery and helicopters. Yosemite officials hired PG&E to do the work, he said.
“We definitely understand their frustration. We’re up against a need to do the work so that everything in the park is restored,” he said.
Businesses in Yosemite Valley are still without power, according to Jonathan Farrington, the executive director of the Yosemite Mariposa County Tourism Bureau.
“The timing’s unfortunate, yes, but the whole Valley’s running on backup generators,” he said.
Alarmed by as much as $20 million in lost tourism revenue last month over visitors’ fears of wildfires, California tourism officials are teaming up with Oregon and Washington state to reassure tourists that it’s safe to visit.
People are already afraid to come back to Yosemite park so any delay is a factor, according to Skelton. She stressed that the Valley didn’t sustain any fire damage and visitors can still get in as long as the plan to take another route or get up early.
“The air is clear today. It’s beautiful up here,” she said. “People are losing tons and tons of money because people are scared.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
This story was originally published August 23, 2018 at 3:42 PM.