Thursday, September 1, 2011

Hurricane Comes to Vermont!

Newfane Village itself is OK . . . with a lot of clean up and drying out to do . . . and folks digging out from river slug.
Newfane videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtYz6nBZ49Q&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j93zcAzTEtg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3w6UnAjMC8&feature=related


I was home happily canning peaches (all from one tree!) and plums and drinking tea and listening to the rain . . . which did not seem particularly menacing . . . I had picked the peaches on Saturday as I thought there was going to be a lot of wind and rain and possibly hail . . .




I have water standing 12" in the garden and raspberries, but it is draining slowly. 


West St. in Newfane was a river when Smith Brook rose above its banks . . .
Basements flooded, dumpsters were moved like lego bricks, and WW Building Supply had large piles of lumber scattered all over there lot.

Here is the Rock River before the hurricane, a small creek, with not much water winding its way down from Dover, VT.

However, the Rock River turned into a roaring current, taking out roads, houses, trees, bridges and anything in its path! The water washed down this gorge from Dover and pushed its way down towards the West River (south of Newfane where Route 30 crosses the Rock River) . . . Williamsville lost its old mill into the Rock River, where we would swim by the old crib dam:

South Newfane is devastated, with the Dover Road west to Marlboro becoming the river bed and house were washed away. This pristine gentle village torn apart by the rage of the water. Friends that live in South Newfane have been told that they might have electricity by September 10th, if they are lucky.

Marlboro, West Brattleboro, South Newfane are grappling with devastation . . . There is no bridge access over the Rock River south on Route 30 due to the bank being eroded, so there is a detour through Williamsville over a bridge they were going to replace and is only one lane wide! Don't know what the trucks will do for deliveries! Here are photos of Route 30 - bridge over the Rock River, and you can see where the Rock River tried to go straight rather than make the usual right turn to meet the West River:
You can't go north on Route 30 as the bridge in Jamaica on Route 30 was washed out. Communities are isolated, and it will be weeks/months/years before all these roads can be rebuilt and passable again. Getting to Brattleboro now take about 45 minutes rather than the 15-20 minutes it used to when it was just a straight shot down Route 30.

So far, it is a lot of disbelief! Folks are in shock. Schools are currently delayed to open for a week, but this may change as the teachers, administrators and students are not able to get to school. Doctors were not able to get to Grace Cottage hospital; it takes about 2 hours to get from Grafton to Townshend, usually a 20 minute drive.


But Vermont was so fortunate that there were so few deaths, and folks are just having to make-due and clean up. Lucky this is the end of August, and not in the winter. We have had beautiful sunny days this week for clean up.

 
We evacuated all Putney Rowing Club boats and equipment last Saturday, in anticipation of Irene, never thinking the water from the Connecticut would make it into the boathouse. . . but it did, and up to the roof! Now the Connecticut River is going down (headed to Middletown CT!) The boathouse sits on a bank 10 feet above the CT River. You can just make out the docks out in the river. We usually go down a ramp to the river!
You can see more photos on the PRC blog: http://putneyrowingclub.blogspot.com/



Everyday is filled with more stories and more changes in the landscape. This just in from my friend Linda who lives down along the Green River bordering on the Massachusetts Vermont line.


September 1, 2011
Patty,

I thought of you and your river as we watched ours rise to frightening heights on Sunday. It covered the road south of our driveway and took the suspension bridge as we stood watching. After it receded later in the afternoon we walked as far as we could in both directions (about a half mile only until we came to lower road sections still covered). The next day we biked/trail blazed miles upriver and down and couldn't believe the destruction. We were marooned, for a week or more it looked like to the north, and maybe until next summer to the south. Here are a few pictures of our road. But our neighbors, the Bell family that goes back generations, already had their tractors out repairing one section of the road. The wife explained that had two days max to get back to work or get fired (at United Foods in Chesterfield). They worked until late that night beginning the worst of the repairs near their house, cutting logs and moving boulders to create a new bank and roadbed. The next day, many others of us worked with them, some moving stones or digging draining ditches by hand, others with the equipment we had here in the neighborhood -- 3 tractors and 1 dump truck. By 6 pm we were able to move our cars (4-wheel drive only) out to higher ground. It was a very heartwarming day and we got to know our neighbors in new and touching ways. We've continued to explore by bicycle and are now beginning to take in the vast geologic change our state has undergone. The river and valley have changed dramatically -- one hillside just north of us continues to collapse, bringing huge trees down with it.

Many thanks for sharing your photos and stories. I haven't been out yet. Steve is heading in this morning for the first time, but somehow I'm content to stay here and continue absorbing my own surroundings. But I'll be ready next week and hope we might get together.

Linda

Suspension bridge washing out (road is in foreground)
Road in front of our house after river receded
Road just north of Duane and Tammi Bell's house
Road in front of Michael Barum's property
Jerardi fields, looking north (former Squires junkyard) 
Jerardi fields
Green River Road, south of state line

Green River Road, south of state line


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