Tuesday, August 28, 2012

The Day the Green Mountains Melted: Hurricane Irene in Vermont One Year Ago Today



Sadly my mom moved into this house two weeks before the flood

Now we know it's called River Street for a reason

Another house on River Street in Wallingford

Our local fire house managed to escape major flooding

Debris sits atop the trestle bridge next to the local fire house

The trestle bridge next to our local fire house acted like a dam at times

Debris sits in the parking lot of our local fire house

Looking towards River Street and Creek Road in Wallingford

Wallingford Rescue the day after Hurricane Irene paid a visit

One of Wallingford's few factories surrounded by water near River Street

River Street in Wallingford near the True Temper parking lot

Wallingford Rescue building in the early morning hours after the deluge

River Street and Creek Road converge in Wallingford

Wallingford Town garage view from the backside

My darling little thrift shop went from this...

...to this...after 4 feet of water inside my shop left sand everywhere

The force of the water ripped the back wall off my shop

My cute little thrift shop went from this...

...and this...

...to this muddy mess...

...and this soggy, disheveled heap

A piece of my neighbor's fence and my shop's back wall

The debris dam at the bridge next to my little shop

Veggies from a local grower upstream sit in the debris dam

Mill River used Rte 103 as a river bed and flowed through town

This from a stream that normally trickles down our mountain

The only way home the day after was on foot or 4 wheeler

Looking up Centerville Road just before the old log cabin

We had to hike a mile to get home

Looking down Centerville Road at the old log cabin built by my mom

Sugar Hill Road looking down from the top of the hill

Sugar Hill Road going up around the bend

Sugar Hill Road just above Seward's barn

Peeking through the front door and out the back wall of my shop

There will be no parking here for awhile

Shop items drying out on our new sandy beach

Debris built up around the river bank in my yard

We now have a sandy beach in our back yard at the shop

The hostas and chives survived...barely


Everything was laid to rest in this huge dumpster

Had to gut the shop down to the outer walls

Now we're just an empty shell...in so many ways
A year later remnants of Irene can still be seen around Vermont

Some people lost entire homes

Sometimes all we can do is move on but we're stronger for it...

...even the fragile can survive nature's mightiest blow


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