CHESTER — Driving into southern Vermont’s quaint town of Chester this week, things initially appeared normal.
More than a week has elapsed since massive rainfall, which pelted already-saturated soil and Vermont’s flood-prone topography, flooded much of the state in a natural disaster many have already put on par with Tropical Storm Irene.
Windsor County, where Chester is located, is one of six counties so far in which residents impacted by the flood may qualify for federal assistance, according to a major disaster declaration issued by President Joe Biden last week.
From Routes 11 and 103 — the 3,000-person town’s main arteries — there were no visible floodwaters covering the streets or creeping into buildings on Wednesday morning. Thriving flower boxes planted by a local gardening club adorned the town’s bridges, their petals fluorescent compared to the murky river rushing underneath.
But turning into Chester’s residential neighborhoods, the signs of recent disaster were visible. Dumpsters placed in front of homes were filled with debris and household items ruined by the flood. From open cellar doors, industrial fans and dehumidifiers whirred loudly. Alongside driveways, tires had carved deep ruts into the still-soggy soil — if the driveway wasn’t washed out entirely. Mounds of river sediment sunk like beach sand underfoot.
Related: A guide to the FEMA aid process for flooded Vermont homes
It was along these streets that Disaster Survivor Assistance responders with the Federal Emergency Management Agency began knocking on doors. For the first time in days, the sun came out in earnest, beating down on the responders’ navy blue uniforms, emblazoned with the FEMA logo.
This is among the federal agency’s initial steps in issuing aid to individuals impacted by natural disaster. Canvassers travel down a given block, knocking on each door one-by-one, to ask residents if they have been impacted. (The work comes before that done by FEMA’s assessors, who survey damage to help government officials make broader decisions.)
Sometimes, the knocks go unanswered, and canvassers leave an instructional flyer tucked inside the door. If someone opens the door, agents walk them through the process of registering with the agency.
From there, an assessor can be deployed to the home, usually within one week, to inspect it. And based on that inspection report, the renter or homeowner may be granted federal aid dollars to help repair or replace un- or under-insured losses or damages to their home.
Since last week, state officials and FEMA responders have repeatedly told Vermonters: Impacted residents do not have to wait for the agency to come knocking before they begin cleaning up — but they should take pictures of all damage to their homes, make a list of lost or damaged items and save receipts for any expenses accrued. Vermonters also shouldn’t wait to file a claim with their insurance companies.
Sal Cardenas, a Disaster Survivor Assistance responder deployed to southern Vermont for the foreseeable future, told VTDigger Wednesday morning that his team had spoken with some 200 to 300 residents in Windham County alone.
“We have over, I believe, 50 or 60 applications already,” Cardenas said. “The number keeps growing as we speak.”
Cardenas hails from California, but has traveled the country for work, knocking on the doors of survivors who he said are often having “the worst day of their life.” The reactions he garners vary by state, he said, “because of the different cultures.”
Sometimes he isn’t welcome: “Some people don’t want to see the federal government on their lawn,” he said. In those cases, he and his colleagues leave.
But since arriving in Vermont last week, he said residents have been “very, very receptive. It’s been the opposite here.”
Some residents are simply too overwhelmed to discuss the bureaucratic minutia of registering and applying for federal assistance. In those cases, Cardenas said he leaves residents with a flyer detailing instructions of how to register when they’re ready. Vermonters can apply online at DisasterAssistance.gov or by calling 800-621-3362.
‘I don’t have five grand for a driveway’
For Chester residents Jack and Linda Carroll, who said they had received a visit from FEMA, last week’s flood wasn’t their first rodeo. They have lived and raised a family in their home one mile south of Chester’s downtown since the late 1970s. Twelve years after experiencing the wrath of Tropical Storm Irene, they’re reliving the trauma.
Linda, a retired, longtime EMT, felt the familiar jolt of a former first responder called to action when last week’s floodwaters came rushing. In years past, she would run toward an emergency upon hearing the ping of her pager.
These days, her arthritis won’t allow her to sprint, but the spirit lingers. Knowing you can never be overprepared in a disaster, she described loading the car last week with numerous changes of clothes, shoes, ropes and life jackets. Before she and Jack evacuated their home on July 10, she insisted their next-door neighbors — one of whom relies on an oxygen tank — leave their home, too.
Linda and Jack evacuated to their son’s house, and from there, they watched security camera footage from their backyard as the south branch of the Williams River consumed their yard. She was crying, hoping the waters wouldn’t carry away her “oasis,” their above-ground pool. (As of Wednesday afternoon, the pool remained.)
It was this scene at her son’s house — her crying, barely able to look at the iPad screen’s security footage — that was her first stage of grief, Linda described on Wednesday.
“Then you come (home) and you feel sad and defeated, because you feel you can’t do anything,” she said. “Then you get mad. And then you pull your bootstraps up.”
Since then, Linda and Jack have worked day in and day out to clean up the mess. In their 70s, it’s hard on their bodies, Linda said.
They learned some lessons from Irene. In the basement, Jack pointed to the windows, which 12 years ago burst open from the force of the flood waters, filling the basement to its brim. He boarded those up, which he thinks helped.
Still, the basement took on 29 inches of water. Their furnace is “toast,” Jack said; the new washer and dryer “dead.” The hot water heater seems to work, but after it was halfway submerged in flood waters, an inspector told them keeping it isn’t worth the risk.
Peer next door from the Carrolls’ backyard and one can see their neighbor Matthew Nelson’s shed, carried by the floodwaters last week roughly 100 feet from its original location. The water carved gaps under the cement foundation of his garage, and opened a gaping hole in his driveway.
He has already filled the driveway, but fears driving over it, worried his car could sink back into the earth.
For the most part, Nelson said, what he has experienced is “inconvenience, I suppose, compared to people that have it worse.” What matters most is that his four kids are safe, as well as his dogs, cats and chickens. The inside of his house remains hospitable.
The hardest pill to swallow is the cost, he said. Nelson is an IT worker for the grocery distributor United Natural Foods. His flood insurance costs roughly $4,000 per year, but that covers structural damage to his home — not the costs of repairing the driveway, or putting up a new fence.
“Unfortunately, the way everything is, a lot of people like myself live paycheck to paycheck,” Nelson said. “I don’t have five grand for a driveway. I don’t have the money I already spent for a dumpster, but you’ve got to figure it out. It’s just added stress.”
‘I don’t know what we will do now’
The Carrolls live in a FEMA-designated flood plain. The stream tumbling behind their home is the reason they bought it nearly 50 years ago: They love sitting at their fire pit, listening to the babbling brook, watching the birds dive down for a drink.
Last summer, Linda took her grandson on countless brook hikes down to Rainbow Rock, a mile downstream, the water barely coming up to their ankles. On Wednesday, the water rushed too fiercely to safely traverse the rocks.
Jack has known this water his whole life. He grew up just across the brook, and spent his summers hauling rocks to craft homemade dams with his friends to go swimming. Ever since Irene, though, he can see that the stream runs differently.
During Irene, the sediment piled high in the stream, raising its bed dangerously closer to his home.
“(E)very rainstorm, we’d see” — Linda mimed the waters rising — “and we’d think, ‘Oh, I hope it doesn’t happen again.’ But we were pretty sure it might.”
On Wednesday, sediment filled their yard. Steps to their back deck that Jack replaced just a few weeks ago were lopsided. The overhang behind their garage leaned perilously toward the stream. The raised garden bed containing Linda’s favorite herbs — dill and cilantro — remained miraculously in place, but her tomato plants were “somewhere down Route 103,” she said, laughing.
The Carrolls are among those hoping that FEMA will cover some of their costs. They have flood insurance, but they say the insurance company has told them they’re responsible for a $10,000 deductible. Retired and on a fixed income — save for the substitute teaching they both do at the nearby local high school — Jack and Linda worry about how they’ll afford it. Jack said he hopes substitute work is steady the upcoming school year.
Even if they were to try to move, Linda questioned: Who would buy their house now, knowing the risk?
“We’re tired. We’re in our 70s, and I don’t know what we will do now,” she said. “I mean, we’re going to stay here for a while, obviously. But a little apartment looks pretty good right now.”
