Shocking video shows the moment a waterfront home was swept into the Yellowstone River after historic rainfall flooded waterways in the region.
The Gardiner, Montana home fell when a rapid stream of water appeared to cause its stilts to snap on Monday, following a weekend of severe storms in the region that have wrecked havoc on the small gateway towns outside of Yellowstone National Park.
Video footage shows the home appearing to tip toward the water before it gets swept into its current and floats down the river.
‘That is insane. Holy s—,’ a man in the video can be heard saying.
The large brown house, owned by TJ and Victoria Britton, is just one of many homes outside of Yellowstone National Park that have ben impacted by record levels of rainfall and massive floods.
All entrances to the park, which goes through parts of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, have been closed since last weekend.
The Brittons watched their home of 16 years fall into the river on Monday.
‘It was a long drawn out (process),’ TJ told CNN. ‘My canoe, my boat fell in. Part of the garage was hanging out. The concrete pad in front of the house was gone. And then the garage fell off. The decks fell off. And the house eventually.’
TJ had been picking up supplies at a friends house when their family home first started to slip into the river.
He and his wife said they noticed a crowd gathered near the guardrail when the got to the highway and pulled over to find that their home had been swept away.
‘And right around the corner of the river came my house,’ TJ said. ‘That was the weirdest thing I ever saw in my life.’
While most people have been supportive of the couple as they navigate the strange and upsetting situation, they also encountered a group of tourists who were bizarrely ‘applauding and cheering when (their) house was floating down the river.’
‘That was frustrating,’ Victoria told CNN. ‘We heard a few people have some uncompassionate, unsympathetic things to say as we’ve been sitting there just waiting for our whole entire life to fall into the river.’
Over three days last week, Yellowstone National Park received about two to three times the amount of rainfall it usually gets for the entire month of June, causing massive destruction throughout the region.
At one point, the Yellowstone River swelled to the highest level its been in over 100 years, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The closure comes at the start of the summer tourism season, and as Yellowstone was preparing to celebrate its 150th anniversary year. It is also the first time the park has closed during the summer since a series of devastating wildfires in 1988.
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