Vermont Floods 2023: One dies in house drowning as flooding becomes first casualty with heavy rains

A death in New York blamed on the storm — the body of a woman found washed away in Fort Montgomery, a small Hudson River community about 45 miles north of New York City.

Gov. Bill Scott said he plans to submit a request for a major disaster declaration to President Joe Biden. “This is separate and in addition to the federal emergency declaration that the president has already signed,” he said. If approved, the proclamation would provide federal support for communities to recover.

In Montpelier, Vermont’s small state capital, flooding from the swollen Winooski River damaged an elevator at City Hall, making the building inaccessible, spokeswoman Evelyn Primm said.

“It is expected to take several months to clean up the catastrophic flood water damage at City Hall. As a result, City Hall will be closed until further notice,” he said.

Residents of Vermont are returning home to find their homes and belongings damaged as severe flooding leaves the capital, Montpelier, a swirling, brown waterway.

One resident posted a video of their front yard with the front door blocked by mud and rocks and a car stuck in it.

Vermont towns and cities were flooded in two days by a storm that dumped two months of rain, allowing officials to focus on recovering from the devastation that left residents in homes, closed roads and streets and businesses clogged with mud and debris.

In the capital, Montpelier, water levels at an upstream dam remained stable as streets were flooded by the swollen Winooski River on Tuesday, officials said.

“It looks like it won’t break. That’s good. It’s a little thing that needs to be on our front burner,” Montpelier Town Manager Bill Fraser said.

Fraser said the dam remains a lingering concern, but the city is moving into recovery mode as the water recedes. Public works crews were expected to begin removing mud and debris Wednesday and building inspections will begin as businesses begin cleaning up their properties.

The slow-moving storm reached New England on Sunday after battering parts of New York and Connecticut. Some communities received between 7 and 9 inches (18 centimeters and 23 centimeters) of rain. Towns in southwestern New Hampshire faced heavy flooding and washed out roads, and the Connecticut River was expected to be above flood stage Wednesday in Hartford and towns to the south.

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

Vermont this week begins a long and arduous cleanup from catastrophic flooding — one so large it can be seen from space.

The Green Mountain State isn’t alone: ​​Other Northeast states are facing their own costly recovery from large, slow-moving storms that dumped months of rain on the region in just a few days.

The IndependentLewis Boyle also has:

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

The good news is that as the floodwaters have receded, there are no new rescue operations, dams remain intact, and roads have reopened.

The bad news is that heavy thunderstorms are expected in parts of the state by Thursday night, which could cause more flash flooding, Gov. Bill Scott said at a news conference. Conditions could produce a tornado, he said. The state is also likely to witness more heavy rains over the weekend.

Vermont Emergency Management confirmed Thursday that 63-year-old Stephen Davol died Wednesday as a result of a drowning incident at his home. This is the first death related to the unprecedented floods in the state.

In Vermont, communities are cleaning up from flooding that has caused more destruction in few places than 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene, and is considered the worst natural disaster since the 1927 flood, which killed dozens of people and caused widespread destruction.

Officials began to estimate how many homes were destroyed and what the financial cost of damaged roads, bridges and railways would be.