STOCKBRIDGE — Jill Gifford took over as this town’s clerk and treasurer just last week. On Monday afternoon, as heavy rain beat down outside, she stood in the vault at the municipal office, moving boxes of records off the floor in case the building floods.
Stockbridge lost original records in the flooding caused by 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene, Gifford said, and she and two other local residents who had stopped by to help said they wanted to make sure nothing got damaged again.
Gifford had already stacked about 10 large boxes on a table in another room and was getting ready to clear more books of land records off the vault’s lowest shelves. “I’ve been here for two months, training — but you can never prepare for everything,” she said with a chuckle.
Gifford said at least one household in town was set to be evacuated by rescue crews Monday. Two people, including a selectboard member, tried to access the house on a four-wheeler in the morning, she said, but there was too much water in the way.
This small Windsor County town saw multiple road closures Monday, including a portion of Route 107 that provides an important link east to Interstate 89.
Across the White River at the intersection of Route 100 and Blackmer Boulevard, Joanne Mills, who owns the Ford dealership on the corner, was keeping an eye on traffic. Mills had parked a truck across Blackmer Boulevard with a handwritten “road closed” sign on it, saying she’d seen one too many people drive past only to come right back.
Mills went out around town Monday morning to check in on some local seniors and make sure they had enough food and water. Everyone was OK, she said. The flooding had not taken out any bridges around town yet, she said, though she was concerned about what might happen if river levels continued to rise.
Mills said she planned to spend the afternoon at the dealership in case anyone needed to stop in for shelter or supplies.
“During Irene, we were kind of the hub. People would come here to get help,” Mills said. “I was just afraid that if no one was here, and people came, that would be sad.”
