Beverly Jelley woke Monday to fears of yet another surge of stormwater. Twenty-four hours later, the 81-year-old local business owner gave thanks for something else: a torrent of community support.
The three-decade operator of Jelley's convenience store on Route 100 - having rebuilt from top to bottom twice, after 2011's Tropical Storm Irene and last summer's record rains - watched Tuesday as dozens of family members and friends put back nearly $300,000 of equipment they had pulled out the morning and afternoon before.
"Everybody just appeared, and we started packing," Jelley recalled of this week's effort to save a business that reopened Oct. 30, after five feet of July floodwater, nine dumpsters of debris and nearly four months of repair.
The store owner was one of many southern Vermonters who breathed a sigh of relief Tuesday after freak winter-solstice-week rain closed roads and schools.
"It was not as bad as we've seen," Jamaica Town Clerk Sara Wiswall said of damage in that nearby town. "When you do it over and over again, you get used to it."
At the height of Monday's storm, first responders from Rescue Inc. used a boat to evacuate three out-of-state skiers from a Jamaica rental property near the Ball Mountain Brook.
As the water receded Tuesday, the town highway crew worked with graders and gravel to repair the impassable Dalewood, Goodaleville and Pikes Falls roads.
"Pikes Falls is closed where we just replaced the culvert," Wiswall told one caller to her office.
Hanging up, the Jamaica clerk shrugged.
"We're still fixing things from July, and we're still paying for Irene," she said. "Trust me, we really are."
Nearby towns such as Andover, Chester, Ludlow, Plymouth and Weston - all hard hit this summer - reported few major problems this week. But that didn't stop the owners of Ludlow's not-yet-open Blue Duck Deli from emptying their basement along the banks of the Black River.
"It was a nail-biter watching the radar, watching the river," said Craig Kovalsky, who wound up in the New York Times after last summer's storm. "We were nervous, but we still had some room."
Back in Londonderry, Jelley said she was grateful the sandbags around her store held, given that she drained her finances after the July flood.
"It may take us a day or two to get our product back where it belongs, but I feel so blessed," the octogenarian said. "We got a bit of water in a couple of spots, but we were spared."
This News item by Kevin O'Connor originally appeared in VtDigger and was republished in The Commons with permission.