Tales Of Terror, Rescues In Luck From July 30 Northeast Kingdom Flood. One Involved A 98-Year-Old Woman

Wreckage of the tiny house in Lyndonville destroyed by
the July 30 floods. A woman living there was dumped out
of the structure and swept away in the raging floodwaters.
She was rescued. Photo by Jeb Wallace Brodeur/VTDigger 

Now that we've had time to catch our breath after the incredible July 30 flash floods in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, tales of extraordinary luck, bravery and generosity are emerging from the disaster.

Given the extreme force of the flooding, and the fact that it struck in the pre-dawn hours, it was a recipe for some tragic deaths. 

One woman tumbled into the raging water when her tiny house collapsed into the torrent. Two women, one age 98, were pulled from a house that had floated away from its moorings. 

I have links to their stories below as those are worthy reads the you can delve into beyond my touching on the highlights

There were surely other close calls that day in the Northeast Kingdom as well.

Before we get into that, a public service announcement.  People up there are still trapped in homes behind roads that are gone. It's taking a herculean effort to restore roads and bridges to the point where people can get in and out for necessities. 

I'm seeing reports those efforts are being hindered by people heading up to the Northeast Kingdom for a first-hand gawk at the destruction. Remember, sightseers are like the rest of the debris: They're in the way and have to be moved. 

Sure, if you're up to it, head on up if you have some volunteer cleanup work you want to do, but that's it. Otherwise, if you want to help, just donate money to groups like the Vermont Flood Response and Recovery Fund at VTFloodResponse.org. 

Now on to two wild stories.

WOMAN SURVIVED TINY HOUSE PLUNGE 

As was the case with so many people, the latest flood snuck up on Leena Aly.

Two women, one age 98, were rescued from this 
Lyndonville flood on July 30. 

As VTDigger reports, the sky was clear Monday evening when she arrived home.  A flood alarm on her phone blared at midnight, so she got up and closed the windows of the tiny home as a precaution.

After 2 a.m., Aly looked out again, and in the lightning flashes could only see flowing water where normally there was gravel, and power lines and a generator. 

Aly tried to flee, collecting her purse, phone as the tiny home began to shake and dip. She stepped off the deck and was swept away by the torrents of water. 

What followed was ....who knows how long. 

Read how it all played out at this VTDigger link. 

From the water she watched the tiny house fall into the river, then her car. Meanwhile, still clutching her phone, she managed to get ahold of 911. 

Here's how luck and people who know the are saved the day. As VTDigger reported:

"The dispatcher asked if she could remember the names of her neighbors, and (Aly) remembered seeing a child named Hazel, the same name as her dog. She told, the dispatcher, who used the name to locate the family: Rose Reynolds and Keith Upham, directly across the street from where she grasped branches in the water.

There was no electricity, so Upham, contacted by the dispatcher, turned on his truck lights attempting to find Aly, That lit things up enough for Aly to see a section of road that she could climb up on. Upham took her hand and led her to his house, which was not being flooded. 

Read everything else on this at VTDigger. 

THE FLOATING HOUSE 

 By now,  you've probably seen a photo of that ranch style house, sitting partly across a road in Lyndonville, pushed there by Tuesday morning's extraordinary Northeast Kingdom flash flood. 

I wondered what happened to the people who live there. I'd hoped they weren't home.

They were. 

Fox Weather interviewed the occupants, a woman named Paula, who I would guess is about 70 years old, and her aunt Dorothy, who will turn 99 years old in September.

Remarkably, neither was injured. Both women stood outside the wreckage of their home, and talked calmly about their order with Fox Weather correspondent Katie Byrne. Click on this link for the video of this amazing interview with the pair.

Here are some highlights of that interview.

Paula said she and her aunt were sound asleep when the house started floating away and at first didn't realize the danger they were in. 

"We got a call from Jeremy, the neighbor, and he says, 'You need to move out,' and I say, 'Why?' And he says, 'You're under water. You're floating." But we never felt the house go."

Two men who live up the road from the pair's house came two the rescue.  One of the two rapped on her bedroom window (remember, this is by the time the house had floated to a point on or near the road). '"He said, 'you gotta get out of there.' So I passed my aunt out, I passed my dog out,  and I was the last one to leave."

As she talked to the Fox Weather reporter, her car was nearby, embedded in a tangle of tree trunks washed down by the flood. The two women were remarkably composed, given what they'd been through. 

Watch the rest of the interview in this Fox Weather video from YouTube.