BARRE CITY — Like many towns and cities in Vermont, Barre City suffered a devastating blow from a river that jumped its banks and flooded its downtown last week.
But the destruction has extended beyond flood-prone areas. The city has recorded 14 landslides since last week.
Last week, a home on Portland Street was knocked off its foundation and heavily damaged when a hillside gave way. Two residents had to be rescued. Another landslide temporarily closed Route 62, a crucial artery for traffic, according to a presentation that City Manager Nicolas Storellicastro gave to the City Council during a special meeting on Friday.
Twelve houses remain evacuated and are being monitored due to the landslide threat, said City Clerk Carolyn Dawes — including her own home. The public works department is using drones to assess landslides and have consulted with engineers and geologists.
With additional rain in the forecast, city officials are calling the threat an “ongoing concern.”
“I’ve gotten to the point where the sound of rain raises my blood pressure and makes me nauseous,” Dawes said in an interview on Monday.
The likelihood of landslides has increased in the state due to recent flooding, according to a Department of Environmental Conservation press release sent over the weekend. Stephanie Brackin, a department spokesperson, wrote that rainfall of 3 to 5 inches “can trigger failures that lead to landslides, particularly when the ground is already saturated. With over six inches of rainfall in most of the Green Mountains and more rain on the way, there is a high risk of landslide hazards.”
The state has advised residents to report any observed landslides to this website.
‘Bucket by bucket’
The threat of landslides in Barre comes amid disaster recovery efforts.
The downtown streets were clouded with dust and dirt on Monday, which mingled with haze from wildfire smoke. Public works crews scraped piles of mud off the streets and into trucks. Business owners and volunteers filled dumpsters with ruined inventory and pumped water out of their stores. Many stores remained closed.
The Barre Civic Center is serving as an operations base for those efforts, with the Red Cross and other disaster relief organizations centered there. On Monday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, aka FEMA, and state agencies had tables with resources while people handed out free food outside. An emergency shelter remained open in the auditorium. Barre police were still using a temporary headquarters at the civic center due to flood damage at the Barre public safety building.
North of Route 62, where many of the city’s damaged homes sit, piles of waterlogged debris were mounting near the street while contractors worked to pump out basements. The mud was dotted with tires and propane cylinders, carrying odors of fuel oil and mold.
At the Rainbow Bridge Community Center, an LGBTQ+ nonprofit on Main Street, tents and tables were set up to connect volunteers with people in need of help. Inside the center’s office there were tables of clothing and other basic essentials. About two dozen volunteers came and went, taking donations or helping to give out items. Volunteers encountered an added challenge early Monday afternoon when Verizon cell phone coverage stopped working.
Shawn Trader, Rainbow Bridge’s executive director, arrived back at the office after dropping off a generator to someone who hadn’t even started pumping out their basement yet. “So the water has been sitting for a week,” Trader said. “And in a large, large number of homes that we’ve worked in, we’re doing bucket by bucket, draining water out of basements.”
Trader said last Tuesday, she worked alone. She sprung into action and delivered supplies. The next day a second person joined and each day the number of volunteers has grown, but there’s still a crucial need for labor, she said.
The city needs more than what Rainbow Bridge alone can provide, Trader said. Dumpsters are in short supply statewide and trucks are needed for flood debris. There’s still unmet demand for generators and pumps for flooded basements. The city remains on a boil water notice.
Dawes said other municipalities, including Burlington, South Burlington, St. Johnsbury and Barre Town, have all chipped in. On top of being overwhelmed by all the work required to dig out, the public works garage suffered heavy damage. Two loaders were also damaged in a rescue operation.
When the city’s public safety building flooded overnight on July 10, emergency dispatchers worked to stop water from damaging crucial equipment while they continued to dispatch emergency calls. Storellicastro wrote in his council presentation that there were 54 calls for service during the first 24 hours of the flood. While the fire department is now back in the public safety building, the damage will prevent the police department from moving back anytime soon, according to Dawes.
‘Wet squalor’
Dawes, who has served as clerk and treasurer since 2008, said the floods she witnessed in 2011 and 2015 “pale in comparison to this.”
Trader described the disaster as being “disruptive on every single level you can imagine” — affecting health care, transportation and food supplies. She worries that it could be hard in the recovery phase to connect people who lost everything to resources which are stationary at the civic center.
“There are families out here — poor people, kids that are living in wet squalor and nothing else. There are kids that needed clothing on that day one. Not to mention food and water.”
Trader’s organization wasn’t formed to focus on disaster relief, but for now that’s what they will be doing as they plead for more help for Barre.
“I would stress that typical of climate change disasters, the poor people here have been affected the most and are still suffering the most,” Trader said. “We’ve got to do something to improve the infrastructure here.”
