With parts of the state once again flooded and more heavy rain forecasted, Vermont’s congressional delegation is renewing its pleas with House and Senate leadership for robust natural disaster aid to the small state.
U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., as well as U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., on Tuesday penned a letter to leaders of the House and Senate — as well as top-ranking members of both chambers’ appropriations committees — imploring them to extend a helping hand to Vermont as its small cities and towns continue to be slammed by one flood after another.
In their letter, Vermont’s delegation wrote that the state needs more than just short-term emergency aid, like that which was deployed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency after last summer’s flooding. It also needs long-term, robust federal funding, they said, to make it more resilient to extreme weather — before it hits.
“This funding is even more critical as the state works to respond to the impacts of severe flooding across northern and central Vermont caused by remnants of Hurricane Beryl, which struck our state exactly one year after so many homes, businesses, farms, and communities were destroyed by the worst flooding Vermont has experienced in nearly a century,” the delegation wrote.
The pleas in Tuesday’s letter echo ones that Sanders, Welch and Balint made in letters to President Joe Biden and congressional leadership nearly one year ago, in the wake of last summer’s historic floods. At the time, the delegation argued that the small state of Vermont would struggle to make a full recovery on its own, absent meaningful federal intervention. Those calls went largely unanswered in the president’s final supplemental budget proposal last year.
On Tuesday, the delegation wrote that “Vermont alone has faced two once-in-a-century floods in less than 20 years,” referring to Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, and last summer’s Great Vermont Flood.
But not long after the latter event, extreme weather once again struck Vermont, with portions of the state facing subsequent bouts of flooding last August and December, and again, in waves, this July. As of Wednesday afternoon, yet more rain is forecasted, and the National Weather Service issued a flood watch across all but Vermont’s southernmost counties.
“Congress has unfortunately waited and delayed as more disastrous extreme weather has once again destroyed rural communities in Vermont and across America,” the delegation wrote. “We cannot wait any longer.”
The delegation implored congressional leaders to direct various types of federal money to Vermont’s flood recovery. They asked for funding from the Department of Transportation to fix and harden infrastructure, and block grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to rebuild desperately needed housing. Also, they requested another top-off to FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund; additional dollars to the Environmental Protection Agency, Army Corps of Engineers and others to harden water infrastructure; and increased funding to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to assist Vermont farmers and rural areas in their cleanup and recovery.
It’s federal funding like this, the delegation wrote, that will not only support Vermont’s recovery from last summer’s historic floods, but also help the state be better prepared for the more frequent extreme weather expected as a result of ongoing climate change. The delegation pointed to research conducted by Water Safe Cities which found that “every dollar spent on flood resiliency efforts saves up to $318 in flood-related damages.”
“As Vermont continues to recover from July 2023’s catastrophic flooding — and responds to
flooding that again hit the state three weeks ago — we once again urge you to pass federal funding that meets the needs of our state, with a significant focus on funding for long-term disaster recovery and mitigation work,” they wrote.
