Hurricane Irene came through Vermont on Sunday. I headed down to my shop at 8 am Sunday for water (ironically our water pump at home died on Friday) and grabbed my laptop. Our town had a huge celebration for it's 250 anniversary on Saturday. The hurricane was due through Vermont mid morning so I scurried home to hunker down for the storm. Little did we know that we would really get 7-8 inches of rain. CRAZY water. The last time Pawlet flooded was the storm of 1976; a year before I came to Vermont. Water going by the turn on RT 30 at Machs. The Flower Brook over ran it's banks just north of the store. These photos are all from community members posting on FB. Carson and I tried to head to town yesterday after a call from my neighbors Holly and Merideth. "Judy, you better come down, your shop is just about to be flooded". We hoped in Carson's truck and ventured down to town to save my inventory and shop. But, roads were flooded every which way we tried and headed home. Can't get there from here.... I've never seen so much rain!
road closed by fire house.
The slate saved the village houses diverting the water around the turn at Machs.
Living in a small town brings out the kindness in neighbors. Judy my neighbor across the street kept me up to date with photos up on FB. Here I sat all day at home and could not make it into town. Tummy churned at each photo, thinking my years of collecting fabrics, inventory and hundreds of shades in my shop might be ruined. I was connected to town, only 2 miles down the hill from my house from all the wonderful, albeit scary Face Book videos and uploaded photos. Friends called to give updates.... I hardly remember eating lunch. In the morning I had been trying to think of a funny post before the storm hit. I had woken up at 3:45 am Sat. pm and posted in the am something to the effect, Hey, the guys on the weather channel are pretty cute in the middle of the night, ha, ha. And of course my girl friends all jumped in with a thumbs up and needed to add some humor to a day starting with unknown forseen problems. Who the heck watches the weather channel at that hour...???
A view from Matt's next to Post Office. This is the closest his boats been to water in a while! Can only imagine fishing this out of The Mill Pond. Yikes.
water coming under bridge on rt 30. amazing power of water.
water at the mill pond.
Today is Monday the day after the storm. I heard at 5 pm last night that my shop was dry! what a wait, but fantastic news. I couldn't imagine that it was dry. I am thrilled and surprised with the good news; I was expecting the worst. I do have a basement full of mud and maybe a failed furnace, but to be honest it could be so much worse. Vermont has been hit really hard by the extreme water of overflowing rivers and mud slides, many roads are closed and whole towns closed off by disaster; watching the news on channel 3 tonight seemed so unreal. Vermont is usually untouched by these crazy weather disasters; it's always somewhere else...thoughts go out to those in Waitsfield, Richmond, Brattleboro, Ludlow, Mendon, Rutland, Wilmington, etc.
Many thanks to Linda, Judy C., Mark, Libby, Sue L. and Rusty for posting photos.