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

3 | Not Just a Rainstorm

not just a rainstorm The surging waters carry an assemblage of debris, composed of limbs of trees, fragments of buildings, spans of bridges, and any other loose object that is buoyant. . . . Together these serve as battering rams to smash and destroy any obstacle along the way such as dams, bridges, and mills. Riverfront buildings are undermined and sometimes collapse to join the floating debris, adding to its destructive power. Railroads and highways are severed, and the lines of communication and power cut. Whole communities become isolated. c David M. Ludlum, The Vermont Weather Book on the morning of sunday, august 28, Tropical Storm Irene seemed to many in Vermont like an overblown rainstorm. Compared with summer thunderstorms, which can dump several inches of rain in a couple of hours (on July 8, 1914, for example, eight to twelve inches of rain fell in Jericho, Vermont, within an hour and a half), Irene’s rainfall in Vermont’s valleys appeared steady, not torrential. And throughout much of the state, her winds were no worse than what the state experiences during the many Nor’easters that bring deep snow in winter. In Rutland, wind speeds stayed under twenty miles per hour for most of the day, with gusts hitting thirty-seven miles per hour in the evening. These gusts were the only indication that Irene, until very recently, had been a hurricane. But the steady rain was falling on already sodden ground that was unable to absorb any more water. As the morning wore on, the state’s rivers and streams began to swell rapidly. 3 Shinn - Deluge.indb 22 6/5/2013 1:04:16 PM Not Just a Rainstorm 23 c c c in wilmington, town clerk Susie Haughwout was out of bed at 5:30 a.m. and pacing. It was raining outside—not hard, but coming down. Sometime around 7:00 a.m. she drove her Mitsubishi suv to the fire station , where her husband is a volunteer firefighter. She asked one of the firefighters if she should be preparing for worse flooding than that of the 1938 hurricane. He said, “I would.” Haughwout jumped back in her car and drove two blocks to the town clerk’s office. She parked in front of the police station next door—directly in front of the 1938 high-water mark—got out of her car, and walked over to the Main Street Bridge. She looked down at the water level scale painted on the bridge abutment. The water was at the twelvefoot mark. Six more feet and it would reach the top of the scale . . . and the bottom of the bridge. It was 8:00 a.m. Haughwout walked back to the police station and stood in front of the 1938 high-water mark. She followed the line with her finger from the mark back toward the town clerk’s office. She stopped at the front door and looked at where her finger was. If the water rose to the 1938 flood level, it would be waist high in the town clerk’s office. She walked next into the vault where the town records are kept and surveyed what she would need to move to the building’s second floor— huge books of land records; books containing birth, death, and marriage certificates; property deeds; plat maps; everything needed to run a town, as well as documents that home and business owners would need to get loans or insurance payments should they suffer storm damage. During her sleepless night, Haughwout had been pondering how best to save the town records. She knew she had to get them to the building’s second floor, and the most efficient way to accomplish that was by elevator . But if the power went out, the elevator wouldn’t work. She figured that she had until at least noon or 2:00 p.m. before the storm got that bad. From the office phone, Haughwout called assistant town clerk Patricia Johnson and asked her and her boyfriend, Larry Nutting, to come in and help move the records. She also called select board member Jim Burke and his wife, Patti. Both Johnson and Burke said they would be in as soon as they could. Shinn - Deluge.indb 23 6/5/2013 1:04:16 PM Shinn - Deluge.indb 24 6/5/2013 1:04:16 PM Not Just a Rainstorm 25 With a morning of...