Disaster revisits Vermont as Beryl’s remnants flood the state a year after catastrophic rainfall
PLAINFIELD, Vt. — The remnants of Hurricane Beryl dumped heavy rain on Vermont, washing away much of 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 mere minutes to evacuate before water destroyed it, 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.
A flood watch was in effect for parts of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
“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 of rain on parts of Vermont, and the heaviest rainfall was in the same areas devastated on July 10, 2023, said Marlon Verasamy, of the National Weather Service in Burlington. Rivers had crested at virtually all locations by late 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.
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, a concrete bridge that collapsed and tumbled downstream was probably responsible for ripping off part of an apartment building with five units, said Michael Billingsley, the town’s emergency management director.
Beryl is hurtling across the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico on a collision course with Texas.
The occupant of another home was pulled through a window to safety moments before it was swept downstream, and a mobile home floated away with four pets belonging to a family that narrowly escaped, he said.
Hilary Conant said she had to flee her apartment as the Great Brook rose, just as she did a year earlier.
“It’s like rewind to last year,” she said. “The water was coming up, so I knew it was time to leave with my dog. It’s very retraumatizing.” A neighbor offered a camper. She and her dog, Casper, sheltered Thursday at Goddard College, which opened dorm rooms to displaced residents.
Around the corner from Conant’s home was the apartment building that collapsed. The front still stood, but the rest was wrecked or gone. “It’s otherworldly,” she said. “It’s devastating.”
In small Moretown, the ruin appeared worse than a year ago, and the school was 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 the community.
Some homeowners are still in the throes of recovery, a year after catastrophic flooding struck parts of Vermont.
“They say we’re ‘Vermont strong.’ We’ll get through it,” Martin said.
A police cruiser crashed down a 30-foot embankment Wednesday night when the officer tried to avoid a utility pole and power lines blocking the road in Monkton, south of Burlington. The officer was not seriously injured, state police said.
Beryl landed in Texas on Monday as a Category 1 hurricane and left millions in the Houston area without power. It then cut 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 deaths in the U.S. and 11 in the Caribbean.
Six tornadoes hit western New York on Wednesday, damaging homes and barns and uprooting trees, the weather service said. Some areas of the state got 4 or more inches 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.
Vermont becomes the first state to enact a law making fossil fuel companies pay share of damage caused by climate change after catastrophic flooding.
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, the mayor of hard-hit Barre.
Even though Vermont is not a coastal state, it has experience with tropical weather. Tropical Storm Irene dumped 11 inches 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.
The National Hurricane Center said damaging winds and flash flooding would continue as Beryl pushes inland.
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 grueling legal fight. But he acknowledged a need.
“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.”
Rathke writes for the Associated Press. AP writers David Sharp in Maine, Holly Ramer in New Hampshire and Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this report.
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