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| Image from Reddit shows the Sterling Market and other buildings in Johnson, Vermont inundated with water in July, 2023. Efforts to reopen the grocery store have failed, and a buyout is now likely to turn the property into part of a floodplain |
Towns like Johnson, Plainfield and many other Vermont communities are still coming to terms and reshaping themselves after the catastrophic floods in the summers of 2023 and 2024.
The settlement pattern of most Vermont villages, towns and cities in the state.over the centuries is near rivers, in flood plains.
Water and currents in these rivers aided commerce, transportation, the generation of electricity, and even, unfortunately, garbage disposal.
Sure, these towns would occasionally suffer serious, damaging floods over the decades and centuries, but they were infrequent enough to be survivable to these communities, at least most of the time.
Modern society does not really need these rivers for economic livelihood as much anymore. That would be OK, if floods didn't happen all that frequently. But they do in our unfortunately age of climate change.
As that climate change roars on, there's nothing to suggest our onslaught of floods will ease. In fact they'll probably accelerate.
It's making less and less sense to keep our beautiful, compact and walkable villages and towns near the rivers. But you can't just pick everything up and move it all immediately.
Still, we're seeing a gradual retreat from the water, and that's slowly changing the face of Vermont. I've brought up this fact before here, but the job continues in fits and starts. It's worth it to keep tabs on this phenomenon, just to assess how it's changing all of our lives and our sense of place.
It's all about resiliency in the face of climate change.
JOHNSON
In Johnson, the flood of July, 2023 filled the inside the Sterling Market, the only major grocery store in town, almost to the ceiling.
Efforts have been made to re-open the store ever since, with no success. The property is owned by Pomerleau Real Estate, a firm that owns a number of commercial properties around Vermont.
"It's former operator Associated Grocers of New England, initially vowed to return, but the proposal was vetoed by its governing co-op board.
....Pomerleau then brought in executives from Shaw's a grocery chain with locations throughout New England. Shaw's was interested opening a store, according to (Pomerleau president Ernie) Pomerleau, but needed the building's owners to commit to installing flood mitigation measures, including a new floodgate, to ensure its protection against future flooding."
Pomerleau was trying to get a grant through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with support from the town of Johnson, to help with flood mitigation of buildings in disaster zones, like the town was after the 2023 flood.
Pomerleau's engineers were coming up with plans to make the building nearly impervious to most future flood events. But that was understandably not good enough for Shaw's. That company pulled the plug on the venture late last year.
Before 2023, the building housing the market was badly damaged in floods in 1995 and 2011, and had several close misses with floods in recent years.
So now, the only choice left for Pomerleau is to give up on the building the company built back in the 1960s.
"Lacking any better alternative, Pomerleau has reluctantly joined other property owners in Johnson seeking to offload their flood-prone homes and businesses and become the 17th property to apply for a buyout since 2023."
These buyouts make sense, as if they go through, the flood-prone properties are razed and replaced buy green space and flood plains in which future floods don't really harm anything.
This plan is full of uncertainly and risks, however. First of all, none of the 17 properties have completed the buyout process yet. Plus, with the new Trump administration cutting spending willynilly and steadfastly avoiding anything that has to do with climate change, these buyouts might not go through.
Even if they do, they'll really change the face of Johnson.
Johnson consists of two municipalities in northern Vermont, the village, where the heart of the downtown is, has about 1,300 people. The surrounding neighborhoods - Johnson Town, has about 3,500 people for a total of roughly 4,800 residents.
So it ain't big.
Converting 17 once-thriving properties to green space would have a big effect on Johnson's tax base, and basically the way it looks.
Climate change related-disasters are becoming more and more common pretty much everywhere, including in Vermont, so it's not just Johnson changing. It's many of the state's compact and picturesque villages and tiny downtowns that must radically change.
One of the other Vermont towns going through a similar process is Plainfield
PLAINFIELD
Plainfield, about 35 miles southeast of Johnson, suffered a fair amount of damage in the 2023 flood. Exactly a year later, on July 10-11, 2024, things got exponentially worse.
Flash flooding roared through the middle of Plainfield on the night of July 10. The flood swept away most of a large apartment building known as "Heartbreak Hotel." Luckily the building's occupants fled shortly before the structure was destroyed. Other buildings in town were severely damaged.
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| The remains of the so-called Heartbreak Hotel apartment building in Plainfield, Vermont, July, 2024. Most of the building was swept away in the extreme flooding that hit the town. |
Like Johnson, people are waiting on buyouts, the town's grand list is taking a big hit, and large sections of Plainfield village that weren't already swept away by the flood last July will be gone.
Twenty-eight homes are awaiting FEMA buyouts. (Again, like in Johnson, we're aren't sure if the Trump administration will follow through with this).
The solution they seem to be settling on in Plainfield is to turn traditional settlement patterns backwards. In other words, Plainfield village is headed for the hills. At least part of it.
"Now the town is considering a plan to expand the downtown and invest $2 million in water, sewer and road infrastructure to a 23-acre plot of private land. Some acknowledge it will change the nature of Plainfield, but add they can't endure another summer of floods. 'We don't want another repeat of this, that's for sure' said local resident Butch Lakin.'"
The extension of Plainfield onto higher ground is meant to truly be a part of the village and not isolated. The vision is for people who accepted buyouts to purchase plots of land on the 23 acres and build newer, safer homes.
Of course, we don't know where this plan is headed. But Johnson and Plainfield are just two of many examples of how climate change will eventually radically change what Vermont looks like, and feels like.
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