CAMBRIDGE — Scott Austin stood outside his home in the center of Cambridge on Tuesday surrounded by murky water lapping up to his knees. The first floor of his house was filled with an inch or two of water, he said, and the flooding was far from over.
“What can you even do in this situation?” Austin said, half with a laugh and half with a sigh.
Around midday Tuesday, the rising Lamoille River was covering more and more of Cambridge in a layer of water that in some areas was multiple feet deep. Route 15 was closed to traffic, and state employees directed cars away at both ends of the village center.
On the side of Route 15 along the shoreline — or what remained of it — every building in the village appeared empty and was engulfed in water. The first-floor windows of some buildings were disappearing. A nearby baseball field was almost completely submerged.
Austin said the farmers who live across the street from him evacuated all of their cattle early Tuesday morning, though he heard they lost at least one calf in the process.
One of the few buildings with its power still on around noon was the Cambridge Village Market, where owner Ron Frey was out back trudging through the water. Frey said he told his employees to stay home Tuesday, but he was keeping the store open so that locals had a place to gather if needed.
Many residents whose homes were underwater stood along the street talking in groups. Others snapped photos. A sign propped up against the steps of one church, which itself was surrounded by water, read “remember.”
“Over here, it’s only a matter of time,” Frey said about the flooding, as fire alarms rang in the background. Sure enough, just after noon, a voice yelled out that there was water coming into the basement of the old red building.
