Vermont flooding 2023: Man drowns at home as flooding claims first victim with more rain predicted

One death in New York was blamed on the storm — a woman whose body was found after she was swept away in Fort Montgomery, a small Hudson River community about 45 miles north of New York City.

Gov Phil Scott said he planned to submit a request for a major disaster declaration to President Joe Biden. “It’s separate from, and in addition to, the federal emergency declaration the president already signed” on Tuesday, he said. If approved, the declaration would provide federal support for recovering communities.

In Vermont’s small state capital of Montpelier, where the swollen Winooski River had flooded downtown, the elevator at City Hall was damaged, making the building inaccessible, spokesperson Evelyn Prim said.

“Cleanup from the hazardous floodwater damage in City Hall is expected to take several months. Because of this, City Hall will be closing until further notice,” she said.

Residents in Vermont are returning home to find their houses and belongings damaged after severe flooding left the capital city Montpelier as a swirling, brown waterway.

One resident posted a video of their front yard with the entry door blocked with mud and stones and car stuck.

Floodwaters receded in Vermont cities and towns pummeled by a storm that delivered two months of rain in two days, allowing officials to focus on recovering from a disaster that trapped residents in homes, closed roadways and choked streets and businesses with mud and debris.

In the capital city of Montpelier, where streets were flooded Tuesday by the swollen Winooski River, officials said that water levels at a dam just upstream appeared to be stable.

“It looks like it won’t breach. That is good. That is one less thing we have to have on our front burner,” Montpelier Town Manager Bill Fraser said.

Fraser said the dam remains a lingering concern but with the water receding the city was shifting to recovery mode. Public works employees were expected out Wednesday to start removing mud and debris downtown and building inspections will start as businesses begin cleaning up their properties.

The slow-moving storm reached New England after hitting parts of New York and Connecticut on Sunday. Some communities received between 7 and 9 inches (18 centimeters and 23 centimeters) of rain. Towns in southwest New Hampshire had heavy flooding and road washouts, and the Connecticut River was expected to crest above flood stage Wednesday in Hartford and towns to the south.

“Nature and climate change will always be one step ahead of us,” writes David Calloway, founder of Callaway Climate Insights.

Vermont is beginning the long and gruelling clean-up from catastrophic flooding this week – the scale of which is so vast that it can be seen from space.

The Green Mountain State wasn’t alone: other Northeastern states are facing their own expensive recoveries from major, slow-moving storms which dumped months of rain on the region in a matter of days.

The Independent’s Louise Boyle has more:

Vermont prepared for the next round of storms — and possibly a tornado — as people took advantage of calm weather Thursday to clean up from historic flooding that damaged thousands of homes, businesses and roads, and left some residents stranded.

As floodwaters receded, the good news was that there were no new rescue missions, dams were holding up and more roads reopened.

The bad news was that strong thunderstorms were expected to move into parts of the state by Thursday night, which could cause more flash flooding, Gov. Phil Scott said at a news conference. Conditions could spawn a tornado, he said. And the state could get more heavy rain over the weekend.

Vermont Emergency Management confirmed on Thursday that 63-year-old Stephen Davoll died as a result of a drowning incident in his home on Wednesday. It is the first death linked to the historic floodings in the state.

In Vermont, communities were cleaning up from the floods that were more destructive in some places than 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene and regarded as the worst natural disaster since the 1927 floods, which killed dozens of people and caused widespread destruction.

Officials were beginning to assess how many homes had been destroyed and what the financial cost would be from damaged roads, bridges and railways.