SULPHUR, Okla. (KTEN) -- The Chickasaw National Recreation Area is one of Sulphur’s top tourism destinations.

According to the National Park Service Visitor Spending Effects report for 2022, there were just under one-and-a-half million visitors to the CNRA that year, with a $23.5 million economic output for the region.

Memorial day weekend is known to kick off the summer season, but with extensive tornado and flooding damage and the whole park being closed, it's unknown when it'll open again.

"This is some of the more complex damage I have ever seen,” Megan Wilkins said, a spokesperson for the National Recreation Area. “There are going to be areas in our trails that we aren't going to be able to even safely clear ourselves for quite a long time much less have open to the public."

There could be a gradual opening of park sites if rangers are able to clear the less affected areas first.

"We're a tourist town,” Mary Lou Heltzel said, a survivor of the tornado and Sulphur resident. “The advantage of the downtown area is that it's so close to the hotel, the casino and the Platt Historic District of the park. It will come back. I don't know how, but it will and it needs to."

When the re-planting phase for the park begins, rangers plan to look into the National Recreation Area's history as a reference.

"We will be looking at the work that was done here in the 1930's by the Civilian Conservation Corps,” Wilkins said. “How they were planting. How they were landscaping and using that as a model, but that 100-year old Oak tree-- we're not going to have that again for 100 years in some areas."