BOZEMAN – About this time last year, Montana State University professor Hugo Sindelar was hiking to snow-covered mountain peaks with his camera equipment, trying to film the rain penetrating the snowpack.

This image would be crucial to illustrate how heavy rains in June 2022 rapidly melted mountain snowpacks, causing rivers to overflow their banks and leading to historic flooding in Yellowstone National Park and surrounding communities.

Sindelar, an assistant professor in the College of Arts and Architecture's School of Film and Photography, also filmed interviews with 18 people affected by the catastrophic floods in the Yellowstone region. His research and investigations into the floods have led to numerous academic projects. He is in the final stages of producing a documentary film called “One in Five Hundred,” and his accompanying article about his research and findings during filming has been published by the Natural Hazards Center, a division of the National Science Foundation.

In this article, “Lessons from the 2022 Yellowstone Floods: The Power of Documentary Interviews,” Sindelar shares what he learned from stakeholders about the impacts of the flood and how to improve preparedness and response to future natural disasters.

“The paper makes it easier to convey actionable instructions and lessons learned,” Sindelar said. “In film, you don't have the opportunity to delve deeper into the details.”

The 500-year flood – so called because the chance of a flood of that magnitude occurring in a given year is 0.2%, or 1 in 500 – destroyed roads, destroyed homes, and caused an old bridge over the Yellowstone River to collapse. The flood's impacts were most severe in the northeastern part of Yellowstone National Park and nearby communities in Montana, including Cooke City, Red Lodge, and Gardiner, which lies on the banks of the Yellowstone River, the longest free-flowing river in the lower 48 states.

Yellowstone's normal summer flows range from 2,000 to 8,000 cubic feet per second. The river generally peaks in mid-June. So far this year, flows measured at the Corwin Springs gauge near Gardiner have peaked at about 16,000 cubic feet per second, and prior to 2022, the previous record flow was about 34,000 cubic feet per second. But in 2022, the Yellowstone River swelled to 54,000 cubic feet per second. In addition to the damage to infrastructure, the region also suffered severe economic impacts. The flooding forced Yellowstone National Park to close completely for a week, and park entrances near Gardiner and Cooke City were closed to vehicles until fall.

Cooke City, Gardiner and Red Lodge are known as gateway communities, and their economies are directly tied to Yellowstone National Park and the influx of money from park visitors. A hotel manager in Cooke City told Sindelar that after the flood, tourism revenue dropped more than 60% compared to a typical summer, leaving small businesses struggling to break even.

“Every business in this city has only a few months to either survive or not, because the money is made in the summer,” the hotel manager told Sindelar.

An often overlooked impact of natural disasters is the toll on residents' mental health. Sindelar points out in his article that this impact was barely mentioned in media reports on the Yellowstone flood.

At the foot of the Beartooth Mountains in Red Lodge, the nearby Rock Creek changed course during the 2022 flood and flowed through town, destroying or damaging many businesses and homes. A local pastor told Sindelar he witnessed the trauma people suffered as they lost their belongings or nearly lost their lives in the raging waters.

“And when trauma hits your brain, you can no longer think clearly and therefore are unable to understand things… What was normally the beautiful, typical, regular sound of Rock Creek flowing through our town very quickly became traumatic for us,” the pastor told Sindelar.

Red Lodge has since reinforced a retaining wall to prevent Rock Creek from flooding the town. Sindelar's paper suggests other possible improvements, including installing more gauges on high mountain streams to allow for earlier flood warnings; improving communication about both impending hazards and how to reopen towns after disasters to minimize economic impacts; and considering climate change when planning for potential disasters in areas likely to experience rain-on-snow events in the future.

Sindelar presented these and other actionable points earlier this month at FEMA's annual Emergency Management Higher Education Symposium in Maryland.

His student-co-written documentary is set to be submitted to film festivals in the fall. He also launched a Yellowstone-focused podcast called Bison Jam. The first season will focus on the 2022 flood, and new episodes will be released every other Thursday.

“I think it’s really important to educate a wider audience about the impact of flooding on communities in Montana,” Sindelar said.