Editor's note: National Park Service Director Chuck Sams on Thursday afternoon said Interior Department leadership teams are working to muster resources to help Yellowstone recover from this week’s flooding. His statement can be found here.

Three days and counting.

It's been three days since Yellowstone National Park was pounded by severe flooding that has shut down the northern half of the park, ripped out roads and bridges that will take many tens of millions of dollars and many, many months to repair, and ruined countless summer vacation plans and neither Interior Secretary Deb Haaland nor National Park Service Director Chuck Sams has publicly commented, if only to express their deep concern and intentions to rally government resources around the beleaguered park known around the world and often credited with spurring the global national parks movement.

While Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly told reporters that he's had "good conversations" with both Haaland and Sams, he didn't go into detail. A Traveler inquiry Wednesday to Park Service headquarters as to whether Sams would comment on the disaster spurred a "maybe" reply. Haaland, meanwhile, announced she was heading to Boise, Idaho, to visit the National Interagency Fire Center on Friday to discuss "significant new investments from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for federal wildland firefighters," but there was no mention of a side trip to Yellowstone.

Rebuilding the north entrance road between Gardiner, MT, and Mammoth Hot Springs in the park could require moving it away from the Gardner River and into a more resilient corridor/NPS

Haaland or Sams more than likely will eventually visit Yellowstone to see the damage first-hand and express their concerns to the park staff. But when Sams was going through his confirmation hearings last October, he said his top priority if confirmed would be to improve staff morale. Publicly expressing his concerns and what he was doing to speed Yellowstone's recovery certainly would fall under such a goal, particularly for the Yellowstone staff -- permanent and seasonal -- whose summer has been turned upside down.

The hesitancy of Park Service directors to publicly display their leadership skills is puzzling. True, the NPS evolved from the traditionally tight-lipped military that initially was given the task of policing Yellowstone before the National Park Service existed. 

Mary Bomar, Park Service director under President George W. Bush, went to Mount Rainier National Park in November 2006 to inspect the damage when more than 17 inches of rain fell during a 48-hour period, leading to road damage inside the Nisqually Entrance, wiping out the Sunshine Point Campground along the Nisqually River, and damaging Highway 410, the Carbon River Road, the Stevens Canyon Road, and the West Side Road. Damage also was sustained by the park's power and water systems. But she made no public comment afterwards.

Jon Jarvis, Park Service director under President Obama, traveled to Yosemite National Park in 2013 while the Rim Fire was raging. While he didn't conduct any formal conference calls with media to discuss the fire and his thoughts as Sholly did this week, he took some time to discuss the situation with the Los Angeles Times, telling the newspaper that the fire is "demonstrating the challenges that we in the land-management business are facing with climate change."

He later went in more detail in a nationwide conversation with Park Service staff.

As Jarvis pointed out at the time, "disasters get attention." And for Haaland and Sams to remain silent during this incredible disaster is concerning and dumbfounding.

Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising, though. Neither has visited Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, where the longest drought in 12 centuries has dropped Lake Powell to its lowest level since the Glen Canyon Dam was built in the 1960s and which is wreaking havoc with the tourism industry there; or Sunset Crater Volcanic National Monument, which was overrun by the Tunnel Fire back in April, burning a number of facilities and vehicles; or Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico, which was shut down by the Cerro Pelado Fire back in May.

In the aftermath of the Tunnel Fire, Richard Ullman, the Park Service's chief of visitor services for Flagstaff Area National Monuments, told the Arizona Daily Sun, left park staff with "what he called 'organizational trauma' that undercut their sense of purpose."

Oh, and by the way, Sunset Crater remains closed due to damage inflicted by the Tunnel Fire with no date set for reopening.

Have Haaland and Sams heard about those disasters?