Yet Another Disaster Declaration In Vermont; This Time For Late June Storms

A storm that carried a tornado warning dumps torrential 
rain on South Hinesburg, Vermont on June 23. That and
other storms that day caused flash flooding in central
Vermont, prompting news Friday of yet another
disaster declaration in the Green Mountain State

 It's getting really hard to keep up with all the disasters and disaster declarations in Vermont since last year. Now we have yet another one. 

Remember that Sunday in June when your radio and television crackled with tornado watches and warnings and flash flood warnings?

That day caused enough damage to warrant yet another federal disaster declaration in parts of Vermont. 

This latest disaster focuses pretty exclusively on Lamoille County and parts of the Northeast Kingdom. They were hit hard with flash flooding on June 23 as two waves of intense downpours swept through that region with supercell thunderstorms. Serious flash flooding caused a lot of damage in Stowe, Walden and in parts of the Worcester Range. 

This June storm caused at least $1 million in damage in just the town of Stowe.

Gov. Phil Scott had asked the federal government to include Caledonia County in the June 22-24 declaration, but the feds responded by only declaring Lamoille County.  

The declaration frees up federal money to reimburse municipalities for 75 percent of funds already spent on debris removal, road and public building repair and staff overtime, Scott's office reported in a Friday press release.

The tornado watches and warnings made the initial headlines with that June storm, but no tornadoes are known to have touched down in Vermont, and wind damage was spotty. The real damage on June 23 came from the flooding. 

Though Caledonia County was left out of this declaration, it is under what will probably become two other disaster declarations from this summer. The first is for disaster declaration prompted by the big July 10-11 flash flood associated with the remnants of Hurricane Beryl.

A federal disaster declaration has not come yet for the intense downpours and extreme flash flooding around St. Johnsbury, Lyndonville, Burke and other Northeast Kingdom communities on July 30, but I imagine that declaration is on its way. 

As I wrote earlier this month, I find it ironic  that Lamoille County was cited in a 2021 ProPublica/New York Times study as being perhaps the best refuge in the nation from the effects of climate change. 

Lamoille County has now been designated a federal disaster area for six storms since December, 2022. So much for being a refuge. 

Vermont as a whole has now had eight major federal major disaster declarations since 2021 with six of those happening since July, 2023.

Those disaster include:

Epic flooding across Vermont on July 9-11, 2023

Severe flash floods in Addison County on August 3-5, 2023

Widespread flooding on December 18-19, 2023

Severe windstorms on January 9-13, 2024

The above mentioned flash flooding and storms on June 22-24, 2024

Severe floods on July 9-11, 2024

And, as mentioned, the July 30, 2024 flood in the Northeast Kingdom will probably get a declaration. 

Vermont, blessedly, hasn't had any extreme weather of note since the strong, damaging winds we saw on August 9 from former Hurricane Debby.   (I kind of doubt that one was bad enough to warrant yet ANOTHER disaster declaration but who knows?)

We've gone over month with no problems and there's nothing in the forecast. Such calm weather seems so strangely odd in our stormy, sometimes dangerous climate change world.

Is Vermont A Safe Refuge From Climate Change? Yes, But......

Lamoille County, Vermont was named the safest U.S. county
from climate change in a recent study. But that region is
not immune from climate change. Photo is of severe
Lamoille County flooding a decade ago.

Vermont is a refuge from climate change, according to a recent study. 

As reported in Quartz, the research concluded that of all the counties in all the United States, six of the top 10 "safest" counties are in Vermont. 

Before you get too excited, the study didn't look at every risk from climate change.  Even in "safe" Vermont, extreme weather events like floods remain a serious hazard.  

The climate safety study was done by ProPublica and the New York Times Magazine  Data on the relative risk in each county by the Rhodium Group, an independent data analytics firm. This data was combined with information from several academic studies, says Quartz.

According to ProPublica and the New York Times Magazine, the relative safety of all these United States counties was compiled using the risks in these categories: Heat, wet bulb temperatures (which measures humidity), farm crop yields, sea level rise, large wildfire risk and economic damage.  The study looks at expected safety from climate change around the year 2050.

In this study anyway, the top four safest counties are all in Vermont. In order, they are, Lamoille, Orange, Franklin and Essex. Orleans County was number six, and Grand Isle County was number seven. The other "safe" counties were in upstate New York and northern Maine.  

The least "safe" county in the United States is Beaufort County, South Carolina. Five of the least safe counties are in Louisiana. No surprise there, after Hurricane Ida.

The unsafe counties are subject to heat, humidity, sea level rise and economic damage, as you might imagine. 

As Quartz notes, Vermont is uniquely geographically situated to blunt some of the effects of climate change. Winters are cold, but getting warmer. That's a net positive, according to the study, but tell that to the Vermont ski and winter sports industry.  Those sectors will surely suffer.

Though summers are getting hotter in Vermont, we're far enough north so that in general, the most dangerous heat waves would be shorter and not as bad as in points south.  But as we suffered through recent hot summers, we're still subject to nasty heat.

We're obviously also immune from sea level rise, since there's no coastline in Vermont. 

We can get forest fires here, but the climate in Vermont in fairly wet. And generally getting wetter. So the risk of western style immense forest fires is on the low side. 

That increasing precipitation trend in Vermont exposes one shortcoming in the studies. Extreme weather events are a rising danger in the Green Mountain State and not fully accounted for in the otherwise excellent ProPublica/New York Times Magazine effort. 

Vermont is terribly prone to floods. We've seen that a couple times in southern Vermont just this summer, and it's turning into a frequent problem.

Take Lamoille County, the "safest" place in America from climate change in this study. This county has been declared a federal disaster area ten times in the past decade. That's mostly from floods, but severe winter storms, thunderstorms and high winds have also been at the root of these disasters.

So yeah, by some important metrics, Vermont is an island of stability as climate chaos whirls around us. But don't get smug about it.

Here's another issue:  Currently, Vermont needs more youngish types moving into the state to replace an aging population and tight work force. So at first, people coming to Vermont to escape climate change might be a good thing.

But what if things get really serious and a huge influx tries to move here, more than we can handle with our housing shortage and iffy infrastructure?  Not only do we need to make our Vermont roads, buildings, highways and such more climate resistant, we might need to start thinking about an influx of climate refugees, too.

This might not be fiction anymore.