One of Missouri’s parks is on a slow road to recovery after a devastating flood last winter. Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park has been open since Memorial Day, when more than 1,600 people visited each day of the long weekend. Since then, attendance has been 400 or 500 a day during the week and one-thousand on weekends. Before the Taum Sauk Reservoir Collapse, waters roared through the park, and 1,500 to 2,000 people visited each day. Superintendent Kimberly Burfield says the parks system is using the disaster as a learning experience for visitors. She says people are surprised by how the park is renewing itself, and wishes more people would visit to see what’s happening at the Shut-Ins. She says a full recovery plan is being drafted and will be implemented this Fall.
