Waterbury area residents cope with their ‘worst fear’ — another flood

A list scrawled in green marker, titled “notes for next time,” hangs on a wall in the center of the Waterbury Municipal Building. The No. 1 item on the list: “Don’t have a next time.”

As residents of Waterbury dig themselves out of the third flood to shake their community in the span of 13 months, they are realizing they’ve become “experts” in flood recovery, according to Waterbury Municipal Manager Tom Leitz. They’re going to have to keep refining that expertise, he said, because even though everyone hopes that this flood will be the last, it likely won’t be.

“The term we use around here is resilience: the idea that the river is not going away, so we need to be resilient to future flooding,” he said.

Packed around the “notes for next time” list is a sprawling collection of shop vacs, dehumidifiers, cleaning products and more — all organized by the Community Resilience for the Waterbury Area volunteer organization, commonly known as CReW.

CReW volunteers had “boots on the ground the minute the water receded,” Leitz said. CReW’s vice president, Liz Schlegel, said the work hasn’t stopped since then.

Of the more than 200 homes and businesses in CReW’s service area that were damaged by floods in July 2023 , all of them reported damage from last week’s flooding as well, Schlegel said. But more than 40 properties have been added to her list — making this storm “seem much bigger and more devastating,” she said, compared to the floods last July and December.

CReW was founded in August to help residents in Waterbury, Duxbury, Bolton, Moretown and Middlesex with long-term recovery efforts after the July 2023 floods. Since then, hundreds of volunteers have supported CReW’s work, Schlegel said. This time around, volunteers have pumped water and silt out of homes, cleaned debris from yards and driveways, gathered damaged furniture and objects, treated flooded rooms for mold, and more, she added.

And residents are taking notice.

“Everyone (in CReW) is going above and beyond to help,” said May McLaughlin, whose house on Cobb Hill Road saw significant basement flooding and yard damage. “I haven’t seen this kind of neighborhood-wide cohesion before. It’s definitely a silver lining in all of this.

It’s not just CReW that’s chipping in, Leitz said. Downtown restaurants have been providing free meals to volunteers and homeowners affected by the flood, and the community pool was open for free admission over the weekend to help locals cool off from recovery work.

But community spirit doesn’t erase the damage that was done — or bring back the family heirlooms and other valuables destroyed by floodwaters.

“It was my worst fear, and it happened,” said Walter Peterson, who lives on Vermont Route 100 between the Winooski River and one of its tributaries, Crosset Brook. Living by the water bodies, he knew his home was at risk, but he said he never imagined the kind of damage they could do.

Peterson said what was once studio space for his D.J. business and his wife Stacey’s pottery creations became “life soup” on Thursday when the river began to rise. His family, including his 13-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter, evacuated safely but returned to “complete decimation” in their basement and about a foot of flooding in their main living area.

Now, Peterson said, he’s picking through the pieces. Two dumpsters are full of things that cannot be salvaged, he said. Others — including hundreds of vinyls he’s collected over the years, family photos and artwork created by his kids — are being rinsed off and restored with the help of neighbors, family-friends and CReW volunteers.

“We’re just focusing on one piece at a time — picking one thing to worry about at a time,” he said. “You don’t know how much you have until you lose it.”

Leitz said most families in the area only had basement flooding, but a handful, like Peterson, saw water levels rise to the first floor. Town infrastructure is in good shape overall, he said, other than Gregg Hill and Shaw Mansion roads, which remain closed. Both have alternate access routes, which means residents can get out and emergency crews can get in, he added.

But the town still has big questions to answer, Leitz said — most of which cannot be addressed until he learns if Vermont has qualified for Federal Emergency Management Agency funding, which could help Waterbury pay for significant repairs.

As it stands now, town officials are discussing never reopening Shaw Mansion Road because the cost “to repair it to the point where it’s not going to be washed out again is not something we can justify,” he said.

Schlegel agreed that certain recovery efforts, such as fixing roads and culverts, need money, not volunteers.

While securing FEMA funding is largely out of locals’ hands, she said, residents can help by reporting their damages to Vermont 211 . The data not only helps determine if Vermont qualifies for aid, but it also helps CReW volunteers understand which neighborhoods need help the most.

While CReW has been “an absolute lifesaver,” Leitz said, volunteers cannot change the course of the Winooski River. As residents come to understand that, he said, more people are considering applying for FEMA buyouts than ever before so they can move out of the area’s most dangerous flood zones.

He said a few buyouts are already in the works from last summer, and more are being considered — especially on Union Street, where flooding has been “devastating,” Leitz said.

While Letiz said it’s hard to watch community members move away, sometimes it’s the only solution for their safety — and that’s what matters most.

“If you want to leave your home, now’s the time,” he said. “ Let’s have the conversation.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Waterbury area residents cope with their ‘worst fear’ — another flood .