Written for the USA Today, but a shutdown was avoided last-minute.

Campers fear closure

Assateague prepares to vacate visitors, transition to skeleton crew

Matthew Cloud, left, and Scott Fincham, both of West Virginia pitch their tent despite the warning that they could be asked to leave their campsite in Assateague Island National Park due to a possible government shutdown. / AMANDA RIPPEN WHITE/THE DAILY TIMES

 

BERLIN -- A forced unpaid vacation for the federal workers at Assateague Island National Seashore is interrupting planned vacations for many campers.

Unless they got word of a miracle breakthrough Friday in budget talks in D.C. to avert a government shutdown, park rangers planned to close the park gates at midnight and make their way around the island's campsites to formally inform paying visitors they had 48 hours to vacate the premises. Then, all but a small skeleton crew of park employees will begin an indefinite furlough mandated by a government shutdown.

Bill Packer, 52, of Philadelphia had to cut in half his annual two-week stay at the park with his wife, Caroline Packer, 50. The couple arrived with friends last weekend and paid in advance for their stay.

"They came around today and told us to get a refund and then play it by ear. So at least they let us know what was going on," Bill Packer said.

The Packers decided to travel to a state park in Delaware to finish their vacation. State parks aren't directly affected by any federal government shutdown. Camping at Assateague Island State Park, adjacent to the national parkland, is closed for the off-season until April 27.

During a shutdown, every park employee will be inactive except for a few National Park Service police, who are available to the remaining campers in case of an emergency and will enforce the park's closing, said Carl Zimmerman, a management assistant at the park.

A couple of special events scheduled for the weekend were canceled as a result of the closing including a beach cleanup by the Assateague Mobile Sportsfishermen's Association, Zimmerman said.

"It's a shame, but this is out of our control," Zimmerman said. "We're hopeful that a bill will be passed soon so we can get back to the business of serving the public."

Matthew Cloud, 33, of Martinsburg, W.Va., drove four hours Friday morning with two of his friends for a weekend fishing and camping getaway that had taken about six months to plan.
 

"When you have a wife and kids, it gets more and more difficult to coordinate a weekend when we can do this, and it's kind of unfortunate for us to have it cut short since we don't get to do this often," said Cloud, adding that he felt fortunate to have a 48-hour period to clear out. "It's not like they told us we had to be out of here by one in the morning."

 

Cloud's friend, Scott Finchman, 36, said park rangers had been accommodating to campers.
"They're good guys, and none of this is their fault," he said as he finished pitching his tent.
Hank and Karen Cheney, 64 and 62, of St. Johnsbury, Vt., took the news of the closing in stride.

The couple had been planning to continue to Norfolk, Va., and Fairfax, Va., to visit family after their Assateague stay, and said they'd either visit sooner or continue to another state park before making the 800-mile drive home in their RV.

"If they need us to leave, then we aren't going to have a problem with that," Hank Cheney said.
Meanwhile, Girl Scout Troop 980 will have to find alternate entertainment in Philadelphia due to the shutdown.

The Salisbury group of fourth- and fifth-graders spent Friday night camping in the Franklin Institute, a museum that is unaffected by the shutdown, as part of a program they used cookie-selling funds to finance.

They'd initially planned to visit the Liberty Bell at the Independence National Historic Park as a supplement to the trip that they've been planning since fall, but the park is closed during the shutdown.

"It's disappointing, but the girls are pretty laid-back and the Franklin Institute part of the trip is really the big thing," troop leader Angie Robinson, 39, said in a phone interview.

The troop will instead visit the still-open Independence visitor's center in hopes employees there will be able to point them in the direction of other activities.

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