The Brattleboro Housing Authority’s (BHA) two developments in West Brattleboro were both damaged by flash flooding brought on by Tropical Storm Irene on Aug. 28.
In anticipation of the storm, the 80-unit Melrose Terrace was evacuated on Aug. 27 and the 72-unit Hayes Court the next morning.
Hayes Court did not sustain much damage, according to the BHA. A lot of water from nearby Whetstone Brook rushed through, but did not breach the apartments. After much mud removal, the BHA said everyone was able to move back in on Monday.
Melrose Terrace was not as fortunate.
The ongoing “sit-in” protests in Washington D.C., which resulted in the arrest of environmentalist author William McKibben, Vermont Law School professor Gus Speth and hundreds of others, wrapped up on Saturday. McKibben, author of the seminal book about climate change, The End of Nature , is also the founder...
A protest, critically important for the future of our world -not to mention our country, our state and our towns - took place in Washington, D.C. from Aug. 20 through Sept. 3. Hundreds of people have been arrested to speak out against the proposed Keystone XL petroleum pipeline that...
This year, Vermont had one case of confirmed measles (in Southern Vermont), after a measles-free decade, and 118 measles cases were reported nationwide as of May, many having resulted from exposure of unvaccinated visitors to places like France, where 10,000 cases were reported as of May. This should be a wake-up call to all parents who have signed waivers to prevent vaccinating their children. Vermont and 16 other states permit parents with a religious or philosophical reason to sign a...
President Barack Obama has approved Gov. Peter Shumlin's major disaster declaration request. The governor thanked Obama for turning around the request he placed with the White House last Thursday morning in a matter of a few hours. “If anyone thinks government doesn't work for them, think again,” Shumlin said in a press conference at the Knapp airport in Berlin last Thursday. The request puts Vermont in the queue for public assistance for town roads that were gutted in the flooding...
Union Institute & University recently appointed Roger Allbee of Townshend to its Board of Trustees. Allbee is a leader in the advancement of agriculture in the United States and former secretary of the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food, and Markets. “Roger Allbee's knowledge, experience, expertise, and lifelong commitment to Vermont will help Union make a lasting, positive impact on higher education initiatives in Vermont and beyond,” said Roger H. Sublett, president of Union Institute & University. “We are honored that...
Obituaries Editor's note: The Commons will publish brief biographical information for citizens of Windham County and others, on request, as community news, free of charge. • Florence Gould Cowan, 94, of Holton Home in Brattleboro. Died Aug. 20 of complications from a fall. Husband of the late Harold Gould and the late Thomas Cowan. Mother of Peter Gould and his wife, Molly S. Burke, of Brattleboro, and Margot Wizansky, and her husband, David, of Brookline, Mass. Sister of Perry Ottenberg,
The Whetstone Brook is important to the West Brattleboro community. The brook and its tributaries define the shape of the town and its roads. In the past, it provided power to its craftsmen as today it provides inspiration to its artists. This time of year, it provides residents and visitors a place to wade and splash: respite from the hot summer sun. And it provides a unified theme for this year's Brattleboro West Arts Open Studio Tour. The group's third...
Thank you for the wonderful reporting on the two retiring Leland & Gray teachers, Margaret Carusona and Carlton Smith, both of whom dedicated their lives to the children and families of the West River Valley. Thelma O'Brien's writing shows insight, sensitivity, and appreciation for the thankless work of educators. Your support and coverage of Leland & Gray activities have been excellent in depth and quality. If only every school district had a local paper as thoughtful as The Commons.
Windham County human service organizations gathered last week to assess the impact of Tropical Storm Irene's flooding on county residents and determine next steps for responding to human needs. Representatives from Vermont's Agency of Human Services, local towns, and human service organizations began formulating a plan, which included collecting and distributing local donations throughout the regions of Windham County hit hardest by the Aug. 28 disaster. “We encourage everyone to give whatever they can to the many organizations helping our...
Donations • Text FOODNOW to 52000 to donate $10 to Vermont Foodbank. The Foodbank will turn each donation into $60 for families in need. • To make a financial donation to United Way of Windham County's Long-term Disaster Relief fund, visit www.unitedwaywindham.org and designate “long-term disaster relief” or call 802-257-4011. • You can also donate to the American Red Cross of Vermont and the New Hampshire Valley. The Red Cross set up shelters immediately after Irene hit for flooded-out families...
I would like to take this opportunity to say how thankful I am that we have come through Hurricane Irene mostly in one piece, and all the stronger for it, as we forge ahead helping our neighbors and our own families and friends, in the days, and weeks, of cleanup, restoration, and replacement. All of our emergency service agencies were everywhere at once, evacuating residents, closing flooded and washed-out roads from dangerous passage, and shutting off power to damaged lines...
State and federal officials have sharpened their pencils, and the tallies for the scale and cost of the damage from Tropical Storm Irene are starting to come in. The damage to state highways and bridges will be in the hundreds of millions, according to a Vermont Agency of Transportation official. Approximately 700 residential structures were severely damaged or destroyed, according to preliminary estimates from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). A total of 423 owner-occupied dwellings were significantly damaged, said...
I am a 27 year employee of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp., and subsequently, Entergy. I am a registered professional engineer and hold myself and my coworkers to the highest of standards of trust, fairness, honesty, and integrity. I am treated every day with those same standards of trust and displaying those qualities has been expected of me every day for 27 years. At Vermont Yankee, we hold ourselves to such high standards that it makes working here very...
The Friends Of Algiers Village, Inc., the nonprofit organization that purchased the Guilford Country Store, has appointed Chris Cole, of Cole Construction Management of Manchester, to serve as the construction manager for the store's long-awaited renovations. Work to bring the building to modern standards and codes will start early this fall. Once this work is completed, the Guilford Country Store will reopen. During the construction, the FOA will search for a tenant to lease and operate the store. Cole has...
Westminster West Community Fair to be held Saturday WESTMINSTER WEST - The 22nd annual Westminster West Community Fair will be held Saturday, Sept. 10, with a theme of “Who Cooks for You?,” celebrating people who provide meals for others. As always, the small-town country fair will feature a road race, informal parade, live music, and, this year, a magic show at noon by “Amazing Bill” Scarlett. The fair runs from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Westminster West. Attendance is...
The high school football season opened over the weekend as Brattleboro played host to Essex under the lights at Natowich Field on Friday, while Bellows Falls faced Fair Haven at Hadley Field. • Tyler Higley's touchdown pass to Soren Pelz-Walsh with 3:20 remaining in the fourth quarter gave the Colonels a 26-20 win over Essex. It was the Colonels' first win since 2009, and a major confidence boost for a team filled with young and inexperienced players. Brattleboro tight end...
Just as residents in the Rawsonville section of Jamaica were beginning to get a handle on the damage caused by Tropical Storm Irene, the sky opened again on Thursday night. A “biblical” rain traumatized this village when a flash flood closed Route 100 and a mudslide took out part of a house on that same highway. Rep. Oliver Olsen, R-Jamaica, was on the scene and shot video and photos of the flooding. No one, he said, was injured. Residents in...
We were lucky. As I write this on Aug. 31, the phones have been out for three days. During the storm, we lost power at our house three times. Green Mountain Power restored it three times. The last time, it stayed on. We were lucky. So we have running water and lights. From one satellite dish, we have Internet access. From the other, we have television. Even so, the bathtub remains full of water. I hate to waste a resource...
By now, the destruction of Irene in Windham County has been well catalogued. And while the powers that be have been quibbling about whether the damage was caused by a hurricane, a tropical storm, or a flood, we've been so busy cleaning up and caring for one another we haven't allowed such quibbling to bother us - or even to remember how passionately and sometimes impolitely we used to argue about things like whether to maintain The Williamsville Hall. The...
I've never had to live through a natural disaster, so it's hard to imagine what it felt like for people who crawled to their roofs and scrawled “SOS” or “Help Us” during Hurricane Katrina. I haven't personally experienced a magnitude-seven earthquake or a tornado that made my hometown look like Hiroshima after the bomb. But having seen the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene in southern Vermont, I've come as close to that sort of thing as I care to. On...
As a longtime resident of the Texas Gulf Coast, I've been through four or five hurricanes and more tropical storms than I have fingers to count on. Thanks to all of this delicious experience, I know how to read the forecasts, I know how to interpret what the meteorologists are saying and, using those skills, I know approximately what to expect. I know how to plan for these things in general and, more than that, I know that when you...
Parts of the Waterbury State Office Complex could be uninhabitable for at least four months, and perhaps significantly longer, state officials say, and the Shumlin administration is figuring out how to put the 1,586 state employees assigned to Waterbury back to work. Flooding from Tropical Storm Irene on Aug. 28 caused extensive damage to the 500,000-plus square foot facility complex, which is comprised of separate brick structures. Gas-and-sewage-laced mud is everywhere. The tunnel system was filled with water and muck.
Last Monday, the Allen Brothers farmstand on Route 5 was sitting in several feet of flood water from the Connecticut River. By the end of last week, it was back in business, albeit on a limited basis. Just a few short days after owner Tim Allen surveyed the damage from flooding spawned by Tropical Storm Irene and predicted that the stand would not be open for a while, if ever again, a stream of volunteers helped his family clean up...
Last Saturday night, I phoned the leaders of the two churches I pastor here in southern Vermont. I grew up in central Florida, and it felt bizarre to be considering calling off worship services for the first time in my pastorate for a hurricane. Who expects a hurricane in Vermont? We reluctantly decided to cancel, not out of any serious expectation of damage, but just in case. Sunday morning, I walked down Main Street in Wilmington. Around the time church...
Where's the money? At least 31 bridges damaged or destroyed. “Miles and miles and miles” of highway in rubble, in the words of Robert Stirewalt, a public information officer for the Vermont Division of Emergency Management. The State Office Complex in Waterbury is a wreck. Not to mention all the homes and businesses knocked down or swept away. How many? The state isn't even trying to count them all yet. “We're not doing an inventory now,” Stirewalt said. “We're just...
Two days after Hurricane Irene passed through Vermont, you can still hear the sound of roaring water virtually everywhere. One of the saddest YouTube videos showing the unbelievable violence along the state's ordinarily placid waterways is the 20-second clip shot by Susan Hammond, of Lower Bartonsville, in the southeastern part of the state. Perhaps it's the simple, humble way that the Bartonsville Covered Bridge seems to say goodbye, bowing first at its far end, then slipping behind the trees while...
On Aug. 28, Tropical Storm Irene’s rains swelled the Deerfield River into a recordbreaking flood. Floodwaters hit many Vermont communities hard, churning up roads, leaving behind rocky riverbeds, drowning main streets in water and mud, and knocking out phone, electric, and municipal water systems. East Dover lost power and phone as a domino effect of the storm’s impact on infrastructure in Newfane. Wilmington’s downtown was submerged under more water than the previous record flood during the hurricane of 1938. Both...
People who survived Tropical Storm Irene have been turning their energies to neighbors and friends all over affected areas of Windham County. In the aftermath of the Aug. 28 storm, access in and out of Grafton was available sooner due to the foresight and organization of Emergency Management Incident Commander Bill Kearns and a team he assembled three days before the storm was scheduled to hit Vermont. Kearns said the volunteer fire and rescue department called “all hands on deck,”
The dramatic reconfiguration of the land in parts of the West River Valley is nearly as poignant to some as the deep losses of homes, cars, businesses, guest houses, barns, sheds, studios, and other property. Sara Deluca, visiting from Connecticut, spent many vacations over the years at her father’s Williamsville cabin high up a hill off the Dover Road. This time around, she said, all she could do was shake her head and hope to get the geography straight. “I...
Lorraine Wright, who now lives in the northern Vermont town of Franklin, used to live in the Westminster area. When she saw the scenes of devastation from Tropical Storm Irene in Windham County, she knew what she had to do. “I have a lot of friends there and a lot of people helped me out at different times when I was there,” Wright told WCAX-TV. “And it’s time for me to return the favor.” She organized a drive in Enosburg...
During the days following the storm, stories of help, hard work, and courage dominated many conversations in the West River Valley. And the bigger the commonplaces about the strength of character and the decency and community Vermonters are said to possess, the truer the stories became. Apart from the epic and often spontaneous efforts of road crews, fire department personnel, law enforcement officials, emergency management staff, and town officials of every stripe, people made connections with one another to make...
The recovery from the flooding caused by Tropical Storm Irene on Aug. 28 has entered a new stage, now that representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have arrived in town. FEMA set up an official Disaster Recovery Center (DRC) on Sunday at the Withington Rink at Living Memorial Park. It will be open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily for as long as necessary. The federal agency will also establish a regional DRC in Dover, with the...
U.S. District Court Judge J. Garvan Murtha will hear opening arguments from the state and from Entergy attorneys on Monday in a trial that could decide the fate of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station in Vernon. Entergy Corp., owner of Vermont’s only nuclear plant, filed suit against the state in April, claiming legislators had pre-empted the federal government’s authority by trying to regulate radiological safety. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) extended VY’s operating license for another 20 years in...
Water rolls downstream... and so does everything carried by its current. Floodwaters from Tropical Storm Irene raged through Vermont towns on Aug. 28, carrying away propane tanks, cars, houses, and a few kitchen appliances. In the Deerfield Valley, much of what the flood scooped up landed in the Harriman Reservoir, also known as Lake Whitingham. “We're Vermonters,” said lake volunteer Mark Pedersen, who spent six solid days of hauling debris from the lake with a pontoon boat. “This is how...
“Base operations,” answers Trish Kittredge as she participates in her fifth telephone conversation in less than 14 minutes. Kittredge is organizing the search for her missing nephew, 17-year-old Marble Arvidson, a senior at Brattleboro Union High School. Marble was last seen as he left his home in West Brattleboro on Aug. 27, the day before Hurricane Irene rocked the area with heavy rain and flash flooding. In charge, yet calm, Kittredge, a command sergeant major for the Army National Guard...