Deluge: Tropical Storm Irene, Vermont’s Flash Floods, and How One Small State Saved Itself

7 | Digging Out

digging out It was a mission impossible. . . . Every single road we opened just felt like a miracle. c  Sue Minter, deputy secretary of the Vermont Agency of Transportation, then Irene recovery officer by virtue of topography, roads in Vermont tend to follow river valleys, particularly in the mountains. The roads often follow ancient routes first cut by wildlife, then Native Americans and the early Colonial and British military. When those groups needed to traverse the mountains , they sought the easiest grade into the steep terrain, and a valley is generally easier walking than a mountainside. The first official roads created in Vermont were military roads. These roads included the Great Albany Road, constructed in 1746 to connect Fort Dummer near Brattleboro to Fort Massachusetts in North Adams, Massachusetts (an extension of this road linked Wilmington to Bennington ); the seventy-seven-mile-long Crown Point Road, laid out by General Jeffrey Amherst in 1759 to connect Chimney Point on Lake Champlain with Fort No. 4 on the Connecticut River (in what would become Claremont, New Hampshire); and the Bayley-Hazen Road in northern Vermont, which was begun in 1776. These roads traveled along hilltops wherever they could—to avoid low-lying marshes. But they also followed river valleys, such as the Otter Creek and the Black River in places. Parts of Vermont state highways 9, 103, and 131 follow similar routes today. The development of other roads in the state is less clear. But early settlers no doubt cut foot, bridle, and carriage paths to reach the closest 7 Shinn - Deluge.indb 98 6/5/2013 1:04:19 PM Digging Out 99 town, or to connect towns. And again, in the mountains, many of these trails were cut along the path of least resistance—river valleys. In central Vermont, any road that traveled east of Rutland had to cross a formidable section of the Greens near the state’s second highest mountain, 4,235-foot Killington Peak. Just to the west of Killington Peak, East and Blue ridges rise abruptly like an impenetrable wall, guarding the route east from Rutland. But between these two ridges is a narrow gorge cut by Mendon Brook. Most days, Mendon Brook babbles down through the gorge around large boulders on its way from its water­ shed on the western flanks of Killington and neighboring 3,967foot Pico Peak. Usually, the brook is only a few feet wide. This gorge was the obvious route from Rutland and Mendon over the mountains to Woodstock and towns on the eastern side of the state. But by most accounts, a road into Mendon Gorge and then over 2,150-foot Sherburne Gap wasn’t created until after the Civil War. Early maps show a “Road Over the Mountains” traveling north of Rutland, through Chittenden , and over the mountains through Pittsfield to Stockbridge, where it joined a path that paralleled the White River to Bethel and on downstream . A map dated 1869 finally shows a road, through Mendon Gorge and over the mountains to the east, possibly Sherburne Gap—as well as a railroad to Woodstock (that by all accounts was never constructed). The road on the east side of the gap then followed the Ottauquechee River through Woodstock to Quechee. This road from Rutland to Woodstock and farther east would eventually become U.S. 4. Farther north, the easiest route from eastern Vermont to the western side of the state followed the Winooski River. Over geologic time, the mighty Winooski carved a relatively wide and deep swath through the Green Mountain Range between 4,393-foot Mt. Mansfield, the state’s highest peak, and 4,083-foot Camel’s Hump. Today, U.S. 2 follows the Winooski from Marshfield, Vermont, all the way to Burlington; Interstate 89 also follows the river from Montpelier to Burlington. Vermont’s U.S. 2 and 4 gained status as “highways” in 1926 when the federal government established the U.S. highway system. No new actual “highways” were constructed. It was simply a new countrywide numbering system to help American automobile drivers get from Point A to Point B via the most direct route—with standardized road signage. Shinn - Deluge.indb 99 6/5/2013 1:04:19 PM 100 the rescue (Until then, road dangers were conveyed in whatever language the sign maker chose. The favored sign at railroad crossings was a skull-andcrossbones . And one forty-foot sign in...