LUDLOW — As newcomers who swapped careers at sea for setting roots in a landlocked state — only to see up to 10 inches of July rain flood their soon-to-open deli — Bex Prasse and Craig Kovalsky can share an adventure story.
They just haven’t soaked it all in yet.
The two were mopping up their waterlogged Main Street business last week when a reporter from The New York Times stopped by to chronicle their tale (“Angry Vermont River Upends Their Dreams”) for nearly 10 million readers coast to coast.
“We’ve barely seen the article,” Prasse said this week. “We’ve been heads-down, trying to figure out what’s going on now. We still don’t know the full scope of everything.”
They’re not alone in a town of 2,172 people with lingering flood damage and no cut-and-dried timetable for the future.
“It’s like, ‘You’ve got to talk to this person, then you’ve got to go there,’” Kovalsky said. “The list just keeps getting longer.”
Back at the start of the July 10 statewide storm, Ludlow was momentarily the epicenter — as of that noontime, it had received the most rainfall in Vermont, the National Weather Service said — and also an island, with floodwaters closing the main Route 103 artery in and out of the town between Rutland and Springfield.
In the week and a half since, workers have reopened all major roads, leaving visitors to find bulldozers and emergency vehicles removing debris on one corner and, at the next, residents carrying on with everyday life.
At both the Ludlow shopping center and Okemo Marketplace, tractor-trailer trucks from national cleaning companies continue to play out the same scene, lugging water pumps, fans and dehumidifiers into such mainstays as Shaw’s, the only supermarket in a half-hour radius, and the post office, which has moved its operations to nearby Proctorsville.
Neither institution can say when it will reopen. Cleaners themselves, some from as far away as California and most reluctant to talk on the record, note that the need for insurance estimates and safety inspections means it may be later rather than sooner.
A visiting television news reporter seeking flood footage this week had to choose a camera angle carefully. The access road to the town’s Okemo Mountain Resort, adjacent to a widely photographed mudslide, was again channeling traffic. Across the street, Tygart Mountain Sports was back selling kayaks for recreation instead of rescue.
Yet pan over to the nearby fire department and you could see a staffer hosing down a parking lot still full of dirt and dust. Yards away along the Black River, a laundromat remained closed until its scheduled reopening on Friday, and then with “no hot water and no ATM,” according to its Facebook page.
A similar contrast is seen on Main Street, where such staples as Aubuchon Hardware, the Book Nook, and Hatchery restaurant are bustling on one side (municipal government has lifted a boil-water order) while, across what’s also Route 103, other businesses are closed indefinitely.
Prasse and Kovalsky are thankful their business is standing, as they know some residents whose livelihoods were literally washed away. Other neighbors, the couple adds, have practically apologized for ending up unscathed.
“Do not feel guilty,” Prasse said she replied. “Those businesses are the ones keeping us all inspired, keeping us all going so that we can eventually catch up and join them.”
