Torrential rains wallop Stowe, wrecking roads

This story by Tommy Gardner was first published in the Stowe Reporter on June 27.

A powerful summer storm that settled Sunday afternoon over Stowe’s eastern flank brought about three inches of rain in 30 minutes, overwhelming the Gold Brook and its many tributaries, washing out roads, driveways, culverts and bridges and stranding folks literally cut off from the rest of town.

According to Stowe Public Works Director Harry Shepard, no one was injured, but the extent of damage to town infrastructure won’t be known for a while, at least until crews can finish their initial mitigation efforts.

On Monday night — at the end of a 15-hour workday that followed a late Sunday night and preceded an even longer, sunny and breezy Tuesday — Shepard described the initial response as “tourniquet-level work” just to get roads open to one lane.

“It’s been an all-hands-on-deck day with contractors and our guys,” Shepard said.

Although rain fell over much of the region all weekend, and particularly Sunday, it was especially potent all along the Worcester Range. Although the damage could be seen all along Route 100 between Randolph Road and Stowe village — trees down in front yard after front yard and grass and nascent corn crops flattened — the real damage came in the tucked away areas.

Practically the whole of Stowe Hollow was affected, as was Moss Glen Falls Road.

North Hollow Road no longer resembled a road, as the nearby Gold Brook quickly jumped its banks and turned the dirt byway into a parallel tributary for a brief half hour. A brand-new stretch of pavement on Stowe Hollow Road was undercut by rain, leaving a lengthy chasm with a blacktop overhang.

“A tremendous amount of water came off the Worcester Range,” Shepard said.

By the end of the day Tuesday, all roads except for Moss Glen Falls were at least open to one lane, but the town’s public safety department was urging people to keep off them and reserve them for emergency access.

The Commodores Inn opened its doors for emergency lodging. Shepard said a couple of families took them up on the offer, but most people hung tight and waited for crews to do their work.

He said he’s not sure how much financial assistance the town will get, since emergency declarations are done on a county-level basis, and he’s not sure anyone in Lamoille County got hit nearly as hard as Stowe. For a while on Sunday, tornado warnings lit up weather alerts, although the National Weather Service did not report any twisters touching down.

Shepard, who already dealt with two floods last year, this week recycled a line that he had used when describing the not-infrequent rebuilding efforts public works departments have been tasked with in recent years.

“We’re putting Humpty back together again. Again,” he said.

‘I’ve never seen that’

Lance Purnell lives on Upper Hollow Road directly across from the intersection with North Hollow Road, where the Gold Brook crosses under the road and runs alongside his property. Sunday, it ran all over his property.

Purnell said he’s lived at the house for 32 years and, while he’s seen the Gold Brook reach flood stage, he’s never seen such massive quantities of water come down at him in such a short period of time.

“That brook was coming up fast,” he said, estimating he saw 3 inches of rain in 30 minutes.

That tracks with what Shepard heard.

“Everybody that I talked to who has rain gauges said it was basically two and a half inches of rain, but it occurred in half an hour,” he said.

Right at the roadside edge of Purnell’s property, the large metal culvert — tall enough for a modest-sized adult to walk through upright — filled up nearly to the top, until big logs blocked the other side and sent the water over the road.

“There was a river coming down North Hollow Road. It had to be over a foot deep coming down the road,” he said. “I’ve never seen that.”

As the river started to rise, Purnell went out to gather some items left near the river — a pair of inflatable bird-shaped “floaties” that he and his family like sit in to cool off in the river, and a garden cart that he typically hitches to his lawn tractor.

He was able to rescue the floaties but, as he went to haul the cart closer to the house, he got hit on the back of his knees by a wave of water that swept up and over the road, challenging him to a tug-of-war he simply couldn’t win. The cart was swept away.

“Do I want my cart, or do I want to die? So, I just let go of the cart,” Purnell said. “It wasn’t ‘scary’ scary, but I knew enough not to screw around.”

All hands-on deck

On Monday, Purnell’s inflatable toys sat safe and sound, bright pink and white amid an expanse of gray silt that used to be green lawn. Purnell said there was at least 10 inches of riverbed and dirt road material deposited on the lawn, and his driveway got wiped out, the gentle slope down from Stowe Hollow Road turned into a small cliff.

His backyard garden was washed away, and his drinking water well got contaminated, but neither he nor his wife were injured, nor was the house damaged, minus an inch or so of water in the basement that entered through a basement window.

By noon Monday, landscaper and excavator Martin Werth had nearly filled the driveway back up to grade so the Purnells could get their vehicles in and out. Purnell said folks around the Hollow tend to help each other out of scrapes.

“It’s all good. Been here a long time and helped a lot of people over the years,” he said. “This is my turn, I guess.”

Monday, dump truck after dump truck emblazoned with the Dale E. Percy, Inc. logo made their way up to the Hollow carrying full beds of dirt, like a massive diesel bucket brigade.

When it was observed that as many as 50 trucks had passed by the Stowe Reporter office on School Street, a Percy employee laughed and said that was likely a considerably low estimate — they had been operating since dawn that day and didn’t stop until dusk.

There were signs scattered all throughout Stowe Hollow warning folks to stay off the roads unless they lived there or were part of the response network. Many folks took to walking the neighborhood, whether to check on neighbors or to gawk and snap photos and videos.

The paucity of passenger vehicles highlighted just how busy parcel deliverers remain even after a natural disaster. Several UPS and FedEx trucks could be seen, trying to navigate an already-complicated network of roads that invariably end in the word Hollow — Stowe Hollow, North Hollow, Upper Hollow, Upper Hollow Hill, South Hollow, Hollow’s End.

Picking her way more confidently through the wreckage was postal driver Annette Nisbet. Monday, she headed up North Hollow Road and stopped to chat with resident Brad James, handing him his mail through the window of her vibrant blue Jeep.

Nisbet said she delivers to 782 boxes on her route, but this day that number was likely to be smaller. Not for lack of trying.

“I’ll get to an area where they’re working and the guys on the crew are like, ‘You’re not gonna make it.’ And I’m like, ‘You wanna bet?’” Nisbet said. “Just four-wheel drive it and go.”

Positivity and sturdy tires can only get you so far, though. Just a minute or two after continuing up North Hollow Road, Nisbet was headed back down, thwarted by forces greater than 285 horsepower. She waved cheerfully from her passenger-side perch.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Torrential rains wallop Stowe, wrecking roads .