Major flood damage in Death Valley National Park

The cross-arm from a utility pole ripped from Grapevine Canyon by a powerful storm hangs above the canyon in Death Valley National Park.

A large section of a newly paved Highway 267 in Grapevine Canyon was carved away by roiling floodwaters in Death Valley National Park.

A 100-yard-long section of a newly paved Highway 267 in Grapevine Canyon, a two-lane road designed to withstand severe flooding, was carved out by roiling water in Death Valley National Park.

Grapevine Canyon and Scotty’s Castle are closed indefinitely after a powerful weather system dropped nearly three inches of rain in five hours, triggering a 1,000-year flood event.

Floodwaters filling a never-completed swimming pool reflect Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley National Park.

A foot-thick layer of mud fills the visitor center gift shop at Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley National Park.

Park ranger Linda Slater photographs the damage caused by floodwaters inside an office space covered with a thick layer of mud in the visitor center at Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley National Park.

Hardest hit was one of the park’s best known tourist stops, the area surrounding Scotty’s Castle, a rambling medieval-style villa erected in steep and narrow Grapevine Canyon in the 1920s.

Mud and debris fill Grapevine Canyon near Scotty’s Castle after a powerful weather system dropped nearly three inches of rain in five hours, triggering a 1,000-year flood event that battered historic structures in the canyon and elsewhere in Death Valley National Park.