Jackson Free Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Employees and visitors are starting to return to national parks in Mississippi following a deal to end the federal government's partial shutdown.

At the Vicksburg National Military Park, superintendent Mike Madell said there was a steady stream of visitors at the historic Civil War battlefield on Thursday and 42 furloughed employees were being recalled to work.

"I was just upstairs in the visitor center and it was full up there," Madell said Thursday.

About 175 National Park Service workers in Mississippi were furloughed, though the number fluctuated at times based on needs, said Bill Reynolds, spokesman for the agency.

Reynolds said all eight national parks in Mississippi have reopened or are in the process of doing so.

"Bringing people back and opening things up takes time, but they are in the process of reopening," Reynolds said.

The shutdown also hurt businesses that depend on the parks.

In Gulfport, it left about 12 to 15 employees idle at Ship Island Excursions, a business that runs ferry boats to a barrier island that is part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore, said Kevin Buckel, the company's director of sales.

The company couldn't take visitors to the island because it was closed.

"We deal with hurricanes. We deal with oil spills. I guess this is just another day at Ship Island," Buckel said.

The shutdown stretched through one of south Mississippi's premier events, a weeklong classic car show called Cruisin' the Coast, which draws thousands of visitors from around the country.

"We lost a lot of business with that event," Buckel said. He also said school groups had to cancel trips.

The ferry to Ship Island is expected to resume operations Friday, and the company hopes to make up its losses before the season closes Oct. 27.

Still, there are other lingering effects from the shutdown.

The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources said Gulf Islands National Seashore, which includes several barrier islands and Davis Bayou in Mississippi, won't be part of a volunteer program to clean up coastal areas on Saturday.

Melissa Scallan, a DMR spokeswoman, said Thursday that 200 boaters and other volunteers who signed up to clean up at Gulf Islands National Seashore were told they would have to work in different areas because of uncertainty during the shutdown.

Scallan said the decision was made Wednesday in consultation with federal authorities, and officials decided that once the call was made, "it's going to stand no matter what."

"I don't know that we could have switched it back, anyways, this quickly," she said.

This will be the 25th anniversary of the Mississippi Coastal Cleanup program. More than 2,500 people usually participate by picking up trash and debris from beaches, rivers and marshes, Scallan said.

Mississippi officials want the coast in pristine condition next week for a conference of the Society of American Travel Writers.

"I'm just glad the parks are reopened so we can get these travel writers out to Ship Island and let them see the beauty of the barrier islands," Buckel said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said all of its employees in Mississippi were back on the job and were working to reopen its recreational areas, including camp grounds.

The 444-mile Natchez Trace Parkway, part of the National Park Service, remained open to traffic during the government shutdown, but its restrooms and visitor centers were closed. The scenic road meanders from Natchez, Miss., through the corner of northwest Alabama and into Tennessee, just south of Nashville.