Another Big Flood Disaster Crushes Swaths Of Vermont

Photo of Bridge Street in Richmond this morning taken
by Joanna Berk, via Facebook. Very sadly, I was
able to take the exact same flood photo last July 11 
and last December 19. The latest flooding seems
to have cruelly victimized the same people hurt
by last year's flooding. 

UPDATES 9 AM

A couple things coming in since I wrote this:

The Lamoille River at Johnson, and presumably later in Cambridge, is rising faster and higher than expected.

At Johnson, it should have peaked by now, but is now rising toward major flood stage at Johnson this morning and early afternoon.

The flood forecast for that river keeps increasing, so the Lamoille River Valley appears to be in trouble again, unfortunately.

Also, the news and photos  out of Plainfield are downright scary. You see that photo of the large house down below in this post?  

Turns out half of it is missing. There were five apartments on the rear of the building that were swept away, reports WPTZ.  Last report is everybody got out so somehow, there were no fatalities with that. Other buildings in Plainfield were knocked off foundations, undermined or badly flooded. Plainfield appears to be the hardest hit town, or at least close to it.

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott is scheduled to give a press briefing on the flooding at 10 a.m. 

Updated rainfall totals include 6.76 inches at Hinesburg, 5.79 inches in Richmond and 5.5 inches in North Fayston. There are many reports of four to five inches of rain. Remember, this all fell in less than 12 hours, which helps explain the intensity of the flash flooding. 

 PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

 It's deja vu all over again, as the saying goes.  

For the second July 11 in a row, I woke up this morning to dreadful Vermont flood news.

Our latest flood last night was bad. Really bad. And it victimized many of the same people it hit last July. This particular flash flood seemed to cruelly focus on the same areas hit hardest last July

A swath through central and northeastern Vermont has taken the brunt of the storm, with many homes and businesses seriously damaged again, many roads closed, people evacuated and lives upended.

Downtown Barre flooded again, with torrents of water rushing down its streets and Vermont National Guard members frantically evacuating people again.  I honestly don't know how Barre will recover from two devastating floods in one year. 

Downtown Montpelier was spared, thank goodness. But I can't say the same for places downstream in Waterbury, Richmond, Williston.  The river was just shy of major flood stage.  The Winooski River water is now racing toward Burlington's Intervale, where all those wonderful vegetable farms are about to be ruined again. 

The flash flooding really smashed through places along small creeks and brooks.  An image on Facebook showed railroad tracks suspended in the air, washed out by Joiner Brook in Bolton. The Bolton Access Road is trashed by the same brook.

Dozens of roads are closed this morning in Vermont, all under water or washed out.  Reports are still coming in, so I don't know if any one was injured or God forbid killed. Last night was a dangerous one, so I've got my fingers crossed.

Damage videos are already popping up, and they're not good. The Passumpsic River in Lyndon forced the evacuation of a mobile home park, and one of the town's famed covered bridges had water hitting the bottom of it by 6:30 a.m. 

Video posted to Facebook shows extreme destruction in Plainfield with a road missing and a large old home partly collapsed into a river. The rest of the house appeared badly undermined and might also collapse. 

Anna Guber of WPTZ posted this 
photo of destruction in Plainfield, Vermont.

In Stowe, some roads that were wrecked by flash floods less than two weeks ago were trashed again. 

As I write this, there's too many road closures, incidents of damage, evacuations and updates to exhaustively list here. 

Suffice it to say, though, that getting around this morning in central and northeastern Vermont, from Addison County on through Barre/Montpelier and up the Route 2 corridor to St. Johnsbury and beyond will be difficult. 

You'll need to be patient today, as there will be a lot of detours or places you just can't go. 

FORECAST

Today will gradually transition from hasty evacuations to sad cleanup. 

A little more rain is in the forecast, but it won't really be enough to cause more flooding. A few local downpours might undo some of the repairs in one or two spots, but this won't be widespread.

The danger today and going forward into the weekend is the warm and humid weather that will keep harassing us. The temptation among us Vermonters is to work hard, get things done, help our neighbors. But there's a real risk of heat exhaustion or worse.

Although some of you will be tempted to keep working, don't. You need to take frequent breaks. And hydrate. I'm sure volunteers will bring plenty of water, sports drinks, snacks etc. to help with the effort. Take full advantage of that. 

I'll of course have more on this latest disaster as we go through the day.

For now, I agree, it is depressing to wake up to another morning like this. They've been all too frequent. We'd been warned that climate change would make these kinds of floods more frequent as rainfall gets heavier.

Some reports coming in suggest pretty extreme rainfall. Hinesburg reported 6.57 inches. St. Johnsbury and Monkton came in with around five inches. You get the idea.

 Gosh, I hope this is the last one for quite awhile. We've had more than our fair share. Unfortunately, though, you never know, which is what makes all this unsettling.