A National Park Service employee walked out of his Skagway office and resigned Wednesday morning citing inadequate precautions for keeping park staff from being exposed to coronavirus. In an email to the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park superintendent, Dustin Stone  warned his departure would be followed by others if things didn’t change.

“I can’t sit idle anymore. You know? It’s too important. Hours matter right now,” he said.

The Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park buildings are closed to visitors. But Stone said his superintendent does not have the green light from senior National Park Service officials to give his employees administrative leave to stay home.

In light of close working proximity and the high transmissibility of the coronavirus, Stone said that is unacceptable.

He said other federal park service employees voiced concerns in a meeting this week.

“Because Skagway is such a small community, and we’ve all seen the flu rip through and affect half of the town over the course of a few days,” said Stone.

Skagway is an isolated town of about 1,000 year-round residents. The local clinic only has one ventilator (it is trying to acquire more). That gives it the capacity to treat two people who are critically ill with coronavirus. As of Wednesday, the clinic has sent two swabs to a lab for coronavirus testing; there are no confirmed positive cases.

A park service spokesman in Anchorage says that Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is following federal guidelines. Peter Christian wrote in a short statement that the national park will limit the number of summer staff hired to work in Skagway but referred most questions to its headquarters in Washington D.C.

Stone said that isn’t enough. He criticized the park service’s slow response. During last year’s federal government shutdown, park employees were sent home since they couldn’t be paid until Congress and President Trump broke the impasse.

“But during a time of national pandemic we are spending time sitting around and debating and arguing and hemming and hawing about what’s right. When the right thing to do is send your employees home, close your parks and, and figure out what comes next,” he said.

Stone is an elected member of Skagway’s municipal assembly. He and his wife run a bed and breakfast in town that they’ve temporarily closed due to the pandemic.

And Stone isn’t the only dissatisfied federal employee. The head of the federal Office of Personnel Management, Director Dale Cabaniss, resigned Tuesday night. Her office manages human resources for civilian government workers. The resignation signals increasing uncertainty for the federal workforce across the country.