Lyndon Area Might See More Historic Changes Due To Floods: Does A Historic Covered Bridge Need To Be Removed

The Sanborn covered bridge in Lyndon. You can see how
it was pinching the flow of the Passumpsic River
beneath it. The bridge has since been removed from its
position for restoration. Due to increased flooding the
bridge might cause in the future, it's been recommended
the bridge not be placed back over the river 
after restoration is complete. 

 One of the many problem with big climate-related disasters is we know they can easily happen again.

Part of the dread is such disasters mean we face more big adjustments.  

You're going to have to change your life, your community, and what is familiar. It might be little things, it could be biggies. 

There's going to be hard decisions, and there's no straight answers on which solution is the right one. 

Which leads us to the Sanborn covered bridge in Lyndon.

It's one of several such historic spans in and around Lyndon and Lyndonville, up in the Northeast Kingdom. 

Before the flooding this summer and last, the Sanborn covered bridge was already slated for a temporary removal and a restoration. it would be moved off to the side, totally renovated and restored, then put back on its perch over the Passumpsic River in Lyndon.  

A community park would be constructed adjacent to it.

The work has already started, and the bridge is off to the side of the river, with work starting on it. But will it eventually go back to its spot spanning the river? Suddenly, we don't know. 

Lyndon, reeling from two catastrophic floods this summer, is looking for ways to mitigate future disasters. It turns out one problem is the Sanborn covered bridge. Or at least its location spanning the Passumpsic River.  

The bridge and its abutments constricts the river, helping back it up into a nearby mobile home park.

Removing the bridge would help. As VTDigger reports:

"At the manufactured home park just upstream, the bridge removal would reduce floodwaters by 0.3 feed during a 10-year flood and 0.6 feet during a 500-year flood, projections show."

A half a foot might not sound like much, but that could be the difference between water entering a home or just passing almost harmlessly beneath it. Or it could be the difference between minor damage and the loss of most of a resident's belongings. 

 The mobile home park has been partially or fully evacuated numerous times in the past few decades. Homes there were badly damaged in this July's flooding. 

I think it would actually be better to move the manufactured home neighborhood out of harm's way, since more flooding is inevitable. Especially in this age of climate change. But where would all these people go?  Who would pay for the move? Certainly not the residents, most of whom are probably living paycheck, to paycheck in the best of times. 

VTDigger describes how this is all painful, controversial and uncertain:

"Figuring out a path forward on the covered bridge project will be a challenging and important endeavor," Selectboard Chair Chris Thompson said during the board's Aug. 5 meeting.

'We need to try to get a win-win out of this,' he said."

The covered bridge won't go away.  The town will restore and keep it one way or another. But whether it spans the river like it was designed to do is now an uncertain. It will likely be one more departure from the familiar, from the way it's always been.  

For those who might ask what the big deal is about an old bridge, these covered bridges are a centerpiece of the state's history, and are absolutely treasured across the Green Mountain State.

We're gradually losing them to floods and other disasters, so we want to preserve them as much as possible.   Tropical Storm Irene back in 2011 destroyed the 1870 Bartonsville Covered Bridge in southeastern Vermont, local residents cobbled together federal aid, insurance payouts and lots of local donations to restore it. 

That restored Bartonsville bridge is now handling traffic again, just like it always did. 

Back in Lyndon, the hope is there will be a similar happy ending. Maybe things will be different, but still beautiful and historic. 

The Sanborn covered bridge dilemma is just one example of how Vermont towns and villages - and communities all over the world - have to make difficult decisions and see sometimes painful changes in the the fabric of these communities. 

A covered bridge isn't the only issue facing the region. 

Already in Lyndon and Lyndonville, the iconic Miss Lyndonville Diner shut down in the wake of July flooding. A new owner might buy it and revive it, but we don't know that as fact yet. Village Sports, also in Lyndonville announced earlier this summer it would need to stop a ski and snowboard program for area youths because its stock of snowboards was destroyed in this summer's floods. 

There's a long list of other important for Lyndon and Lyndonville to consider after the floods. How best to repair roads and bridges?  To what extent will federal money help? 

Should the town and homeowners take advantage of a buyout program, in which owners of flood-vulnerable homes sell them, and they they are demolished and turned into open land so that nobody else has to live through a flood on that site. How badly will such buyouts wreck the tax base?

These are questions being asked in towns all across Vermont. The answers will be slow in coming, I'm sure. I also bet there will be some wrong answers, not intentionally wrong, but just what you get when  you make educated guesses. 

Every time it starts to rain, it seems the main question that runs through everybody's mind is, "What fresh hell will this bring?" Almost always, the answer is none. We know that the vast majority of rain storms are harmless.

 But the PTSD of epic storms in the recent past mean you never know when it'll hit again, and what painful questions the next one will bring.