I read this here in 2019 I think, and visited Death Valley last October. When we were preparing the drive from Vegas to Mammoth lake, Google Maps would show different routes every day. It turned out the 190 was closed and they were busy working on it, updating the status regularly. After driving for a couple of hours we hit a roadblock and without any cell phone reception we felt really helpless. We gambled a bit and took a narrow winding road towards Telescope Peak (I believe). Then I started thinking about the Germans because the road we were on was not even on my cached Google Maps. I just saw it isn't on the live one either... Luckily we made it just fine and took a 3 hour southern detour past Ridgecrest. We still made it to Willy's Hot Springs near Mammoth lake before nightfall. What a fantastic trip!