effectively splitting the river, going to the right where it s supposed to go, and the other going basically down the main street to the town, flowing on to streets, homes, businesses where the water is not intended to go. you have the clean up from that. you have to wait for the water to recede and come back down. it was a tremendous amount of water. on june 13th, they picked up 2.18 inches of rain in west yellowstone. that s basically what they would get in the entire month of june getting it just in 24 hours. they have the excessive heat melting snow pack. it s the combination of all of those events. with that said, as quickly as the water rises, it comes back down. the river gauges along the yellowstone river have come below flood stage. not just at one location, but multiple. this is the yellow snow river at billings, peaking out at 16 1/2 feet. that s an entire foot above major flood stage. we are currently sitting around that 10 foot mark now. we do expect it to get around
park may be closed for the entire summer season because of the flooding. cnn s nick watt is live for us this morning, in billings, doing more fantastic reporting on what s happening there. what are you seeing this morning? well, john, here in billings the peak has passed for new. i ll get to why i say for now in a second. what basically happened here in billings is in the space of five days, the river went from flowing at eight feet to 16 1/2 feet. and the water plant that you just mentioned is a very interesting fact here. that plant was built to operate only when the river runs at 15 feet or less. when it was built, no one figured the river would ever run at more than 15 feet. it did. 16 1/2 feet. the other interesting thing here is really just the unpredictability. so exactly a year ago the river was running at all time lows here, 8,000 cubic feet a second.
overwhelmed with visitors. so they re figuring out the logistics. the northern entrance that is going to be closed for months. as you mentioned, more rain is coming. i m in billings today, which is about nearly 200 miles downstream from where we were yesterday, which is gardener, and the northern entrance to the park. now, yesterday where i m standing, yesterday afternoon, this was all covered in water. they were calling it a 500-year event here in billings. the river rose from eight feet over the course of five days to 16 1/2 feet. and interestingly they had to close down the water plant here in billings because when that plant was built, they built it to operate when the river is up to 15 feet. no one thought it would go past 15 feet. it did. so they had to close it down. it is now back open. what we re watching is still what is happening in yellowstone national park. we re watching precipitation, we re watching temperature. because those are the factors that caused this flood and co
also, tomorrow, it could reach 100 degrees, just to add to the fun. guys? wow. wow. 8 to 16 1/2 feet, doubling. and look how fast that river is moving behind nick. just incredible. nick watt in billings, montana. thank you very much, sir. now severe storms in michigan have shut down a baby formula manufacturer that just started remaking products only 11 days ago. the heavy rains caused a flood inside the abbott plant in sturgis. the company says it has been forced to suspend production of its formula, and will restart once it is resanitized. you ll remember that sturgis plant was famously shut down in february after an inspection found bacteria. and that closure helped spark and really fuel the nationwide baby formula crisis. the last thing they needed to happen there. all right, ahead for us, kevin spacey making his first court appearance in london on sexual assault charges. what came out of that hearing
fresh fish up 13%, chicken up 16 1/2%, ground beef up 15%. the price of an airline ticket up 33%. sure, the cpi is showing an average of 8.3% but the stuff that we re actually buying every day is up much more than that in the double digits and that s what is called demand destruction. you start looking for alternatives. bill: well done, maria. diesel all-time high. gasoline price today. $4.58 a gallon. a year ago it was $3. a big difference. americans spending on gas, last year the average was $2100. in may they expect americans to spend $5,000 annually. call for number 4. $5,000 for an american family. look at those numbers. i think there were two things that stuck out at me, maria, target announced their earnings