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

2 | Irene's Trip to Vermont

irene’s trip to vermont The main effect of tropical storms on Vermont is the enhancement of the normal rainfall. The intruders from the south usually bring northward vast quantities of warm, humid, tropical air that results in heavy precipitation when the cyclonic whirl reaches New England. c David M. Ludlum, The Vermont Weather Book hurricane irene was born on August 15, 2011, a tropical wave in the warm Atlantic waters off the west coast of Africa. As the wave tracked west at about twenty miles per hour along a line just north of the equator, it was a well-defined weather disturbance on satellite images. As it neared the Lesser Antilles, the chain of Caribbean islands dropping south in an arc from Puerto Rico toward Venezuela, shower activity within the tropical depression showed signs of organizing into a tropical storm. At 8:00 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, August 20, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami gave this tropical depression an 80 percent chance of developing into a tropical storm during the next forty-eight hours. Within ten hours, conditions had changed explosively. At 6:00 p.m. on August 20, National Hurricane Center forecasters upgraded the disturbance to a tropical storm and gave it a name: Irene. The ninth-named storm of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season, stretching from June 1 to November 30, Irene would be the first tropical storm in 2011 to develop into a hurricane: tropical storms Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Don, Emily, Franklin , Gert, and Harvey all died out before their winds achieved hurricane force (greater than seventy-four miles per hour). With thunderstorms swirling around her cyclonic center, tropical storm Irene continued her march west through the Caribbean. By 2 Shinn - Deluge.indb 9 6/5/2013 1:04:15 PM 10 the storm­ Sunday, August 21, she had reached the Virgin Islands—the northern­ most islands of the Lesser Antilles—and showed her potential for destruction . In the wee hours of August 22 she unleashed a lightning bolt over tiny Necker Island, part of the British Virgin Islands and privately owned by Virgin Airlines founder Sir Richard Branson. The bolt set Branson ’s island home afire. Inside were twenty people, including Branson’s ninety-year-old mother and actress Kate Winslet. Everyone escaped, but the mansion was destroyed. Later that day Irene was upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane. According to the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale, that meant her winds were now sustained at more than seventy-four miles per hour. When the storm made landfall in Puerto Rico, high winds downed trees and power poles, leaving about 1 million people—half of Puerto Rico’s population —without electricity. Flooding left some five hundred people homeless and killed one woman, who had tried to drive across a swollen river. After battering Puerto Rico, Hurricane Irene skirted north of the Dominican Republic, where she caused more heavy flooding and claimed at least three lives. On the evening of Monday, August 22, as she steamed northwest toward the Turks and Caicos islands and the Bahamas, Irene strengthened to a Category 2 hurricane. According to the Saffir-Simpson scale, that meant her winds were now sustained between 96 and 110 miles per hour. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center predicted she would make landfall in North Carolina by the end of the week. After wreaking havoc on the Turks and Caicos, Hurricane Irene intensified yet again. Now a strong Category 3 hurricane, with sustained winds of 111 to 130 mph, she headed northwest toward the Bahamas. On August 24 and 25 she battered roofs, downed trees, and flooded streets and homes across the archipelago, and knocked out power in Nassau. Her eye passed directly over several of the Bahamian islands, and she reportedly swept away 90 percent of the homes in Lovely Bay on Acklins Island. Done with the Bahamas, Hurricane Irene then shifted course and took a more northerly direction. Landfall on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States was now less than two days away, and coastal residents from South Carolina to New Jersey began worrying that Irene would intensify into a Category 4 or 5 hurricane—with winds greater than 155 mph—as she refueled over the warm Atlantic waters for two days. Shinn - Deluge.indb 10 6/5/2013 1:04:16 PM Irene’s Trip to Vermont 11 So far, she was following the...