On July 11th, Vermont experienced severe flooding, exactly one year after catastrophic flooding occurred across the state. Then, overnight Monday, areas of the Northeast Kingdom were inundated with up to eight inches of rain, causing more flooding and damage. Governor Phil Scott discussed the fallout from both floods during his latest briefing today.
“It’s simply demoralizing. But we can’t give up. We’ve got to stick together and fight back against the feeling of defeat.”
Governor Scott, a Republican, was describing the despair of Vermonters who have seen much of the progress they made cleaning up from flooding earlier this month washed away in a just few hours overnight Monday.
“Unfortunately, we saw heavy rains Monday night and expect more today, especially in the Northeast Kingdom. For instance, the StJ (St. Johnsbury) area saw over 8 inches, Island Pond 7 inches all within a very short period of time. This heavy rainfall combined with saturated soil left nowhere for the water to go leading to more flooding and more damage to infrastructure, property and businesses," reported Scott. "Especially concerning is the number of homes that have been destroyed, a list that unfortunately seems to be growing by the week adding to a housing crisis we’ve faced for years.”
Department of Public Safety Commissioner Jennifer Morrison explained that the flash flooding on July 30th was due to a small storm cell that stalled over the state’s Northeast Kingdom. Ten swift-water rescue teams were activated and within hours performed 12 rescues and 15 evacuations.
“I want to take a moment to thank and to spotlight these teams, all volunteers, who answered the call in the middle of the night and responded without hesitation to what turned out to be raging floodwaters and dangerous conditions," praised Morrison. "We have very preliminary information indicating that 50 or more homes were destroyed or took on major damage in this event. It is far too soon to give you reliable totals because many of the hardest hit areas are still inaccessible.”
Scott noted that officials from FEMA have concluded their inspection of damage from the July 11th storm which will determine if the state meets the threshold for federal assistance.
“Based on the data collected we believe there’s a strong case for a major disaster declaration," Scott said. "The next step is to send a formal request to the President and we expect to send that within the next couple of days. This declaration request is for the July 11th storm and does not include this week’s rain event.”
Morrison adds:
“We have to do the same process of information gathering and preliminary assessments to both public and private infrastructure to determine if any counties will qualify for assistance from FEMA for the events of July 30th. This generally takes several weeks to complete.”
Vermont 211 is the state’s main conduit for providing flood resources and receiving damage reports. The online page has been updated to allow users to select which flood event they are filing a report on.
