Volunteers from the Montpelier Youth Conservation Corps fanned out Wednesday on the city’s mud-strewn downtown streets to ask business owners what help they might need in coming days.
The answer: volunteers, buckets, squeegees and mops.
Vermont’s capital city was inundated with floodwater Monday and spent much of Tuesday in uneasy suspense as officials warned that the Wrightsville Dam could breach.
On Wednesday morning, with that disaster averted, business owners, employees, relatives and volunteers had begun carting out damaged merchandise, pushing mud out to the sidewalks, and spraying sidewalks clear of gunk.
Meanwhile, crews from the Montpelier Public Works Department worked to clean up Main and State streets.
Under a canopy next to Shaw’s supermarket on Main Street, volunteer coordinators were advising more than 900 people — who had signed up through the city government website to help with flood cleanup — to hold off until after the city cleans up the streets.
“We want to make sure that the city has time to help people clean up,” said Peter Walke, a volunteer coordinator with the nonprofit Montpelier Alive, adding that a city building inspector and a sustainability coordinator were conducting initial inspections of buildings.
“As that process wraps up, we can get more folks out to places where they’re needed,” Walke said.
On Wednesday, clouds of dust wafted over State Street every time a vehicle drove by. Undaunted, volunteers Maclay Ericson, Jasper Turner and Cole Saunders went from business to business, talking to owners about their needs.
Chris McDonald, owner of Capital Kitchen, faced a lot of mud in his store, but he was able to laugh about it.
“It’ll be fine,” he said. “We probably have it better than a lot of people.”
McDonald said he had been able to move much of his merchandise above the floodwaters, and his computers stayed dry, though he thought he might have lost a router and printer to water damage.
Krista Simonds, general manager of Julio’s Cantina, was spraying sludge off the sidewalk where the restaurant has tables.
“It’s not all going to get done in a day,” she said.
Simonds told Ericson, Turner and Saunders the restaurant could use more volunteers to help with the cleanup. Staff members and their families were already helping out in the restaurant.
Over on Main Street, in front of Bear Pond Books, Martin Kemple, whose wife co-owns Splash Naturals, was spraying mud off neighbors’ sidewalk.
Kemple later told VTDigger the water had caused “extensive damage to our displays and merchandise, but not as bad as it could’ve been.”
Bear Pond Books was able to move all its inventory 2 feet above the floor, co-owner Robert Kasow said, but “it’s just that we were a foot-and-a-half short.”
“We just had an army of people get everything up off the floor,” Kasow said, but not quite high enough to avoid the effects of water 3 and a half feet deep.
On Wednesday, employees and volunteers were helping to clean up Bear Pond’s floors and the lower bookshelves. Books were piled up in front and behind the store, Kasow said, and the store lost a lot of furniture, as well.
Clarification: This story was updated to with additional information about the damage to Splash Naturals.
