“flooding devastates vermont”

August 29th, 2011

How odd to read that headline. I’m only just starting to grasp the extent of the storm damage here, after watching the news and reading the Times online…which I couldn’t do for the last 30 hours because the power was out.

I was going about my business yesterday morning, thinking things weren’t going to be too bad. It was windy and rainy, but no more than it often is. The electricity went out around noon, but that happens all the time too, here in my mountain redoubt. We got out the candles and the headlamps. Here I am drawing last night.

Hol and I had a crank radio that we listened to from time to time and we heard people calling in with reports of flooding and bridges washing out. But somehow, without the visuals, it didn’t sink in fully. Still no power this morning. I checked Twitter as I was charging my phone in my car, and started seeing all these stunning photographs of Richmond, the town near me. The ramp to the interstate was underwater. The river was running through the town.

Hol and I got in the car and drove down the hill to see what was happening. At the bottom, here’s what we found.

We watched a couple cars plow through the water–it was about two feet deep. We turned around and went home. When the power hadn’t come on by 3pm, we decided to make our way into Burlington to recharge our devices. We had to go a long, roundabout way because of the flooding.

On our way back home, we crossed the Winooski River bridge which was lined with people watching the surging floodwaters. All the rain from the hundreds and hundreds of brooks and streams all across the state was churning through the mouth of this river into Lake Champlain.

It was much worse in the southern part of the state than up here in the north. I’m a little concerned about our friend NLC, who last checked in here at 2:30 am on Sunday. I hope it’s just a power outage and that he will report in soon.