O.C. Students Find the Real Raging Waters--Yosemite

Fourteen-year-old Bill Cuppy of Midway City and several of his classmates spent Friday drying out soggy camping gear after a school science trip to Yosemite National Park went awry: A 12-hour downpour caused the Merced River to overflow its banks, flooding some of the students’ quarters and leaving them and other park visitors temporarily stranded.

Michael Luker, principal of Vista View Middle School in Fountain Valley, said that the rising river temporarily isolated some of the 156 students and adults from the main group of campers, who were staying in about 80 cabins in the popular park.

“There was no panic or danger for anybody, [although] they had to wait for the river to subside before they all could be together,” said Luker, who monitored the situation by telephone from Orange County. “They were separated . . . Wednesday afternoon and rejoined Wednesday evening. But the students were chaperoned during all of this.”

Waterlogged campgrounds were expected to be off-limits to weekend visitors at Yosemite because of the flooding this week.

The heavy rains Wednesday night caused snow to melt in the upper Sierra Nevada, leaving the Merced River twice as high as normal, park officials said.

The park entrance from Highway 140 was to remain closed all weekend except to employees, while entrances from Highways 120 and 41 were open for visitors with confirmed lodging reservations, park spokeswoman Nancy Novo said.

Only the Wawona area and Mariposa Grove were to be opened to visitors this weekend, she said.

The school group was on an annual Outdoor Education Program outing, during which students receive instruction in geology, math and history.

They were one of three school groups among the more than 5,000 people displaced or affected by the intense rains and flooding, Ranger Nikyra Calcagno said. “We had rain as high as 9,000 feet,” Calcagno said. “Usually that would have been snow, which would have lessened the situation.”

Cuppy said that about 1 a.m. Thursday, the students and adults nearest the river evacuated to cabins on higher ground. Flood waters went as high as halfway up some of the cabins’ doors.

“We were lucky that my cabin wasn’t evacuated,” the student said, adding that electricity had been shut off in the cabins.

Despite the rain and flooding, Cuppy said, “it was still fun.” The group returned home late Thursday.

Cuppy’s mother, Cindy, took the adventure in stride. “We figured it was a great life lesson.”

The youth described the first two days as cloudy. Most of the waterfalls at the park, including Yosemite Falls, were enormous, he said.

The group was made up of Vista View’s eighth-grade class, Luker said.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.