Updated at 5:05 p.m.
Heavy rain hammered Addison County on Thursday night, flooding downtown Middlebury, causing mudslides, prompting the evacuation of an Amtrak train and leading to at least one swift water rescue.
Initial reports suggested the damage was most severe in Middlebury, Ripton and Hancock, according to Vermont Emergency Management spokesperson Mark Bosma.
Between 2 and 5 inches of rain fell in parts of Addison County, according to Jessica Storm, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Burlington office, and up to 6 inches hit Middlebury and Ripton. More rain and flooding was expected Friday, she said, and a flood watch was issued for much of the state.
Thursday’s deluge came nearly four weeks after heavy rainfall throughout the state caused historic flooding. Addison County initially avoided some of the most severe flooding in that event but was inundated starting July 14.
“Vermont is no stranger to heavy rainfalls, but 6 inches just from these storms is quite impressive,” Storm said Friday morning. “The storm sat over that area for a while and it just kept raining and raining.”
Three people were rescued from the roof of a submerged car in Middlebury on Thursday night, Bosma said. The car drove across a flooded road and was swept away, he said. Videos shared on social media showed downtown Middlebury streets underwater.
Tom Hanley, chief of the Middlebury Police, said another rescue took place Thursday night in a flooded underpass on Seymour Street when an occupied car drove into deep water. A police officer had to break a window and pulled the occupants out to safety, Hanley said.
At the request of the Middlebury Fire Department, the state deployed its urban search and rescue team, as well as two swift water teams, according to Bosma. He said more such teams would be deployed Friday ahead of the additional incoming weather.
The National Weather Service expects “more showers and thunderstorms, potentially heavy in certain areas” on Friday, Storm said. The service issued a flood watch for much of Vermont from noon through 9 p.m. Friday.
Those who live in Addison County should “stay on high alert” for the additional rain, Storm said.
“Since it rained so much there yesterday, things are already very saturated and could easily flood again if they get a heavy thunderstorm.”
Amtrak evacuated
Amtrak’s Ethan Allen Express was traveling north between Rutland and Middlebury on Friday night when flooding halted its progress and eventually forced its evacuation.
Bradley Holt of Richmond wrote on LinkedIn that he was in the front car when the train hit a washout just south of Middlebury.
“Fortunately we were going slowly due to concerns about water on the tracks,” he wrote. “I don’t know if we derailed or not, but it seemed like we may have based on what I felt and saw.”
According to Holt, crew members moved passengers to one car in the back of the train and then used a south-facing engine to pull the car toward a road crossing. Buses then carried the passengers north to their destinations.
Holt praised the train’s crew for its professionalism but said he wasn’t sure whether his fellow passengers realized how serious the situation was.
Jen Flanagan, an Amtrak spokesperson, wrote in an email Friday morning, “Due to heavy rainfall and a flash flood warning in effect yesterday evening, customers traveling on Train 291 were provided with alternate bus transportation to their final destinations from Leicester, Vermont.”
Flanagan said “water was not anywhere near the cars and no damage to the train occurred.” She said the train was running normally again Friday and had left Burlington around 10 a.m.
Roads closed
Laurie Cox, chair of the Ripton Selectboard and a town emergency coordinator, said Friday morning that it took her four attempts to make it home from Middlebury on Thursday night. Various routes into Ripton were impassable due to downed trees and flooding, she said. When she reached a bridge over North Branch Road, she said, it was covered by water “turbulently moving across it.”
Ripton suffered major damage during last month’s flooding, when a mudslide destroyed one house and led to the evacuation of roughly a dozen others. When Cox ran into members of the town road crew Thursday night, she said, “They told me that basically a whole lot of the stuff they had just put back together came apart again.”
In a separate interview Friday afternoon, Cox said she believed the damage in Ripton from Thursday’s storm exceeded that of last month. Some homes in town remained completely cut off, she said.
“We are looking at some pretty extensive road work that may need to be done here,” she said.
According to New England 511, mudslides led to the closure of Route 125 in Hancock. Other slides in the Ripton area closed at least one lane of that road. According to the VT-Alerts system, Route 17 in West Addison, Route 7 in Middlebury and Route 100 in Rochester were also closed Thursday night.
Bosma said a total of seven roads closed as a result of the storm, with all but two — routes 116 and 125 — reopening by 8 a.m.
Middlebury police and fire
David Shaw, chief of the Middlebury Fire Department, said first responders had evacuated people from two vehicles by Friday morning. In both cases, the drivers had tried to navigate high waters.
Shaw said the department also evacuated a number of households near the banks of the Otter Creek, including several near the Pulp Mill Bridge.
Other residents’ carbon monoxide alarms and smoke alarms responded to compromised mechanicals from the high water.
“We got our butt kicked in every sense of the word,” Shaw said.
With the storm stalled out over Middlebury, Shaw reached out to four surrounding towns for help from their fire departments.
“I just didn’t have the resources,” he said. “It’s just — you’re spread too thin too fast.”
Meanwhile, the Middlebury Police Department closed due to the flooding, town officials said in an email announcement Friday morning, and police were operating on one telephone line. According to Shaw, the police department’s dispatch room took on water, and the rest of the building was “inundated.”
“There will be a delay in officers responding to messages,” officials said in the email. “All first response and emergency services are operational.”
The police department moved into the fire department building on Friday, Shaw said. He said the department was handling calls at near-normal capacity.
Hanley, the police chief, said on Friday the police buildings were flooded in part due to the overwhelming amount of runoff. One police building had 2 or 3 feet of water in the basement because water had backed up in a drain.
“Any of the storm drains you saw in town usually had a geyser coming out of them,” he said.
Hanley said the water was gone from the police building by Friday but that floors were still drying out. He said he hoped to return to normal operations after about a day.
Damage to Middlebury
Middlebury officials on Friday advised motorists in the area to drive cautiously. The town’s Department of Public Works removed debris on North Pleasant St. that came from a mudslide. Bill Kernan, director of operations for the department, said Friday morning that the road seemed to be “fairly stable” but that staff were still working to secure it. The road remained open.
The following roads in Middlebury were closed as of Friday morning: Creek Road, Shard Villa Road, 3 Mile Bridge Road, Blake Roy Road, Painter Road past Werner Tree Farm and Route 116 between Cady Road and Quarry Road.
“Several other roads have been partially washed out or undermined, so be aware & use common sense,” Patti Kirby with the Middlebury Department of Public Works wrote in an email alert to residents of the town.
Shaw said an underpass on Seymour Street, near Marbleworks and businesses such as County Tire Center, Greg’s Meat Market and Nino’s Sicilian Pizza, “had probably 11 feet of water in it. It was about four feet from being full.”
The Department of Public Works was working to fix a water main break on Route 116, which had left roughly 100 households and businesses without water.
“At this time there is no estimation of when the water will be back on,” an announcement from the town stated.
Flooding compromised Route 116, destroying part of the travel lane, Kernan said. It also broke the water main. Officials were working to restore water in the short term, then “do some long term planning” to find a permanent fix, he said.
In the meantime, the town issued a boil water notice for all users of the Middlebury town water system, and requested that residents conserve water. The water system was running at reduced capacity due to the main break, Kernan said, so the department was endeavoring to limit the amount of water running through the system to avoid building up too much pressure.
Asked how Thursday night’s flooding compared with last month’s, Kernan said it’s “fairly similar, but more of a deluge.”
“We had tons of water downtown on our streets that we’ve never had before,” he said. “I mean, the storm drains couldn’t keep up.”
Shaw said the event was different from other storms, in part, because it was unexpected and came all at once.
“You know you get those heavy rainstorms that last for three to five minutes — torrential downpour, wipers on as fast as you can go, and you barely can see?” he said. “Picture that for three and a half hours. That’s what it was like.”
Kernan advised residents who experienced “any kind of impact” to call 211 to report the damage. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has not yet added Addison County to the emergency declaration that would allow county residents to apply for disaster assistance funds.
“If you experienced storm damage – flood water, ground water infiltration, property damage from wind gusts, landslides, sink holes, etc., you still have time to report the damage so that it gets to FEMA,” town officials said in an email to residents.
The Addison County Economic Development Corporation echoed the plea for residents to inform 211 of damage in a press release on Friday afternoon.
“Businesses, individuals, residents, landlords, and non-profits should all report damage, which includes loss of inventory,” the release stated.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the night that recent rains began.
