Yellowstone National Park: Normal traffic counts cut by half after reopening

Yellowstone National Park's southern loop reopened with less than half of its normal visitor turnout, according to officials. Historic flooding has damaged the park.

The park said Wednesday that backups at entrances were cleared after noon local time and that less than half of what is normally 10,000 or more vehicles had entered the south loop.  

"While it's too early to tell if the license plate system worked, it appears to have done its job by cutting our normal traffic counts by half," Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly said. "As we've discussed with our community partners, we will monitor this together and make adjustments if necessary. We're happy to have visitors back in Yellowstone and appreciate the patience of the public and community partners as we continue working through this difficult situation."