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Businesses facing uncertainty after Cottonwood Fire, flash floods impact tourism

By CNN

UT: BUSINESSES STRUGGLE WITH DOUBLE DISASTERS

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    PIUTE COUNTY, Utah (KSTU) — Businesses across Piute, Beaver and Sevier counties are struggling after wildfires and flash flooding hurt tourism during one of the busiest times of the year.

Restaurant, motel and outdoor recreation owners say the back-to-back disasters have kept visitors away and caused major financial problems for small businesses that depend on summer travelers.

Burn scars left by the Cottonwood Fire increased the risk of flash flooding after heavy rain moved through central Utah. Floodwaters carried mud and debris across roads, campgrounds and recreation areas that are popular with tourists.

Dan Groves, owner of Hoovers River Resort in Marysvale, said wildfire smoke caused many visitors to cancel their trips to southern Utah.

“People still were just changing their plans entirely to just not come to Utah,” Groves said. “It sounded like the whole state was on fire.”

Groves said the losses have been especially difficult because tourism businesses in the area have already faced several hard years.

“It was the third summer in a row that we had pretty much the entire summer cancelled and less through traffic for the restaurant,” Groves said. “We were seeing some writing on the wall that was pretty grim.”

Businesses faced another challenge after officials issued a boil-water advisory in parts of Piute County when flood runoff affected local water systems.

At Big Rock Candy Mountain Restaurant, employee Carley Veltri said the fires, flooding and water problems have made it difficult for businesses to recover.

“People convoyed out of here,” Veltri said. “When the fires were happening, now we have flooding. That’s something else.”

Veltri said summer tourism is extremely important for rural Utah communities.

“It’s killing us all,” she said. “Utah is a seasonal state. All the revenue basically comes from the summertime and now since there is no business there is no revenue.”

Groves said many business owners feel overwhelmed by the repeated disasters.

“It’s not because we are bad business owners,” he said. “It’s because we’ve had these natural disasters over and over again.”

Even with the challenges, business owners say they are continuing to stay open and hope visitors return before the summer season is lost completely.

A GoFundMe has been created to help local business owners: Fundraiser by Ahtianna DeJesus : Cottonwood Fire: Support Hoovers and Local Recovery!

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

Why Karoline Leavitt might be impossible for Trump to replace

By CNN
(CNN) — Donald Trump hardly needs anyone else to serve as his mouthpiece.The most clamorous president in modern history always gets his message out — in a daily riot of online posts, interviews and rancor with reporters.The departure of a press secretary therefore might seem like a trifle to the messenger in chief. But the exit of Karoline Leavitt, announced Wednesday, represents a significant personal and political loss. The vacuum she’ll leave will emphasize her role as a vital member of the president’s brain trust.But she is far more than a spokesperson. Leavitt understands the Trump id. She’s been a leader in his second-term assault on Washington institutions of accountability — in this case, the Beltway press. Just like the boss, she broke the mold of her position. And with relentless trolling of reporters, she’s exposed the fractures of traditional journalism in the social media age.Leavitt said on social media on Wednesday that since the birth of her second child, a daughter, on May 1, she’d realized she couldn’t be the mom her kids deserve while devoting the “constant time, energy, and attention,” her job requires. Trump, perhaps softening the blow to himself of the departure of a 28-year-old he praised as one of his “most trusted aides” announced that Leavitt will continue to serve as an outside adviser.A Herculean assignmentBeing Trump’s press secretary is no easy ride. The term “message discipline” is an oxymoron in this administration. No one, including himself, knows what the president will say from one minute to the next. He changes policy on a dime, contradicting his top officials and himself.And Trump is a master media manipulator. He’s demonized, flattered and played reporters for decades. He relished the role of 1980s New York tabloid villain as he built his brand as a real estate tycoon and celebrity. He intuits the media’s craving for constantly evolving headlines and uses it as a tool of distraction.Trump’s zeal for conflict, disdain for etiquette and willingness to say outrageous things forged alchemy when his political ascent coincided with the explosion of social media. He used the new technology to inject his volcanic personality into the nation’s political bloodstream, bypassing the traditional media used as a conduit by his predecessors.So maybe he doesn’t even need another press secretary.He’ll struggle to replace Leavitt’s combination of skills. She speaks MAGA more fluently on camera than anyone but the president. Her briefings are less attempts to explain policy or to deliver coded messages to foreign leaders than demonstrations of Trumpian defiance.The president’s supporters dearly love Leavitt. Her blasts at famous reporters recall the rebel yells of Trump’s first campaign. She rarely answers a question straight — preferring to attack the motives or mindsets of reporters thrust into the role of extras in the Trump show.Last month, Leavitt sat by the president’s side at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner that was rescheduled after a gunman tried to rush into the annual event in April. That evening, which Trump spent insulting journalists in vicious and personal terms, will now serve as a valedictory metaphor for her tenure.It’s also somehow fitting that Leavitt announced her resignation in the middle of a storm over whether the White House used reporters on Air Force One as a decoy during the president’s secret flight from Turkey during a security scare last month.Grave questions about press freedomsLeavitt’s tenure will be remembered as devastating to the quaint notion that the press has a vital role in holding presidents to account.Her operation took over control of the pool system long administered by the independent correspondents’ association. She decided who got into presidential events and flew on Air Force One. She added streaming services, local conservative radio hosts, and podcasters and MAGA personalities to the permanent press corps.Critics saw an attempt to introduce propagandists who’d go soft on Trump. His supporters cheered what they saw as an overdue dilution of what they regard as the liberal elite media.In one enormous controversy epitomizing the administration’s contempt for regular media, Leavitt — under Trump’s direction — banned the Associated Press from certain White House press events, and an agency reporter was excluded from Air Force One. AP, which has thousands of clients in the US and worldwide, had declined to change its style guide to mirror Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”Leavitt’s briefings soon made the “alternative facts” pioneered by Trump’s first-term media team appear tame by comparison. She opened briefings with highly torqued monologues hyperbolically lauding Trump’s achievements. The performances were reminiscent of prime time shows on conservative TV — a world in which she’d surely find a lucrative future once her kids grow up.Tensions develop between every administration and the media. Relations between President George W. Bush’s team and reporters were often brittle. Acrimony between reporters and President Barack Obama’s aides belied conservative notions that journalists were in the tank. And President Joe Biden’s press shop was especially prickly. But Trump has threatened the constitutional role of the press in the republic as never before.Democratic Rep. James Walkinshaw said on CNN’s “The Arena” on Wednesday that he didn’t doubt Leavitt’s sincerity in citing family reasons for her departure. But he added: “It’s a tough job. It’s a job where, to be Donald Trump’s spokesman, you have to willfully deny reality on a daily basis.” The Virginia lawmaker added: “I think her legacy will be one of further degrading the relationship between the White House and the press.”While Leavitt’s briefings are made-for-TV showdowns, she’s often more collegial with media members away from the cameras. She’s usually available to reporters, and her bond of trust with Trump means she’s in the room with the commander in chief at pivotal moments. This privilege is important to journalists and builds credibility for top spokespeople. And there are fears that with Leavitt gone, they will find it even more difficult to report on the decision-making of an erratic and nearly unchecked president.Unless the president picks a replacement who is already deep in his inner circle, Leavitt’s successor may lack the authenticity that made her an authoritative voice for the administration. Most White Houses groom one or more deputy press secretaries for the top job, which typically grinds down incumbents within a few years. The lack of a visible succession plan for Leavitt will fuel speculation that Trump may just take on the entire task himself.Leavitt will always be a heroine to Trump’s base. And her influence may outlast the second Trump administration, since West Wing teams often build on the techniques of those who came before. A future president, Democratic or Republican, might balk at voluntarily handing back power to the press.In his second term, Trump often looks like he’s wielding power to ensure nothing can ever be the same again.He had a loyal and effective partner in Leavitt.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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