By: Lisa Rathke
PLAINFIELD, Vt. (AP) — The remnants of Hurricane Beryl dumped heavy rain on Vermont, washing away an apartment building, knocking out bridges and cutting off towns, and retraumatizing a state still recovering from catastrophic floods that hit a year ago to the day. At least one person died, officials said Thursday.
More than 100 people were rescued by swift-water teams during the worst of the rainfall, which started Wednesday and continued into Thursday, officials said. In Plainfield, residents of a six-unit apartment building had only 15 minutes to evacuate before the entire structure was swept away, the town’s emergency management director said.
The death came in the community of Peacham, where floodwaters swept away a man in a vehicle, officials said.
Stunned residents emerged Thursday to assess damage in a series of small towns along a hilly corridor on the Winooski River, connected mostly by U.S. Highway 2. Parts of that artery were closed, along with dozens of other roads. Shelters opened in several communities.
“It’s just mud everywhere,” said Art Edelstein, who assessed the destruction at a home he has owned for 50 years in Plainfield. “This is, in my impression, catastrophic. I’ve just never seen anything like this.”
The deluge dropped more than 6 inches (15 centimetres) of rain on parts of Vermont, and the heaviest rainfall was in the same areas devastated a year ago, said Marlon Verasamy, of the National Weather Service in Burlington. Some rivers weren’t due to crest until Thursday afternoon.
“It’s not lost on any of us the irony of the flood falling on the one-year anniversary to the day when many towns were hit last year,” Gov. Phil Scott told reporters Thursday.
The towns hit hardest by Beryl’s rains lie east of the capital, Montpelier, which flooded last year but escaped serious damage this week.
In Plainfield, Hilary Conant said she had to flee her apartment, just as she did a year earlier.
“The water was coming up, so I knew it was time to leave with my dog. It’s very retraumatizing,” she said. A neighbour offered a camper to temporarily house her.
In the small community of Moretown, the damage appeared worse than it was a year ago, and the school was among buildings once again damaged, said Tom Martin, chair of the town board. Workers hoped to install a temporary bridge Thursday to restore the main road access to town.
“They say we’re Vermont strong. We’ll get through it,” Martin said.
Beryl landed in Texas on Monday as a Category 1 hurricane and left millions in the Houston area without power. It then carved a path across the interior U.S. as a post-tropical cyclone that brought flooding and sometimes tornadoes from the Great Lakes to Canada and northern New England. It has been blamed for at least eight U.S. deaths and 11 in the Caribbean.
Three tornadoes hit western New York on Wednesday, damaging homes and barns and uprooting trees, the weather service said. Some areas of New York state got 4 or more inches (10 or more centimetres) of rain, causing water to rush down streets in the village of Lowville.
Flash flooding also closed roads in several northern New Hampshire communities, including Monroe, Dalton, Lancaster and Littleton, where officials said 20 people were temporarily stranded at a Walmart store and crews made water rescues.
Resilience efforts appeared to pay off in Vermont. Flood control dams were “performing phenomenally” other than the breach of one dam with minimal impact to property or roads, said Jason Batchelder, state environmental commissioner.
But the damage — coming as some residents still await federal disaster-assistance checks from the floods a year ago — was still a bitter pill to swallow.
“It’s tough to watch folks in your community suffer and go through this again,” said Thom Lauzon, mayor in hard-hit Barre. “As I stand here a bit discouraged, I’m also very proud.”
Emily Hawes, the state mental health commissioner, urged neighbours to check on one another, saying the flooding on the anniversary of last year’s disaster “can be deeply traumatizing.”
Even though Vermont is not a coastal state, it nonetheless has experience with tropical weather. Tropical Storm Irene dumped 11 inches (28 centimetres) of rain on parts of Vermont in 24 hours in 2011. The storm killed six in the state, washed homes off their foundations, and damaged or destroyed more than 200 bridges and 500 miles of highway.
In May, Vermont became the first state to enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a share of the damage caused by extreme weather fanned by climate change. Scott, a Republican, allowed the bill to become law without his signature, saying he was concerned about the costs of a gruelling legal fight. But he acknowledged the need to address the toll of climate change.
“Climate change is real,” Scott said Thursday. “I think we all need to come to grips with that regardless of your political persuasion and deal with it, because we need to build back stronger, safer and smarter.”
