Learning to cope with floods

By Angelo Lynn

Editor’s note: Angelo Lynn is the owner and publisher of the Addison Independent in Middlebury, a sister publication to the Mountain Times. 

Lightning flashed outside my office window as weather forecasters were predicting two or more inches of rain, which got me reflecting on the $80 million to $90 million of federal funding Vermont is slated to receive after last summer’s floods; before last week’s flood totals could be tallied.

Questions arise over flood recovery funds each time. Is it enough? How will it be used? What are the primary goals?

Done well, the money will reduce the damage caused by future flooding. Since Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, bigger culverts under roads such as Brandon’s Conant Square have been built to much success. Flood plains have been reestablished, residential houses that have repeatedly been flooded have been and are being bought out so owners can hopefully relocate in areas that aren’t prone to flooding. The money is doled out town-by-town depending on the need for repairs and prevention.

“There’s just that much need out there,” said Fellows.

Yet towns like Montpelier and Johnson continue to see repeated flooding, seemingly overwhelmed by the amount of rain — and perhaps poor municipal plans that overbuilt on land at the confluence of waterways and in hollows too low to prevent constant flooding. 

The up-to $90 million in federal funding for last year’s floods is three times the amount Vermont received post Irene, but it likely won’t be enough.

Pete Fellows, a floodplain manager at the Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission, said if the state can use that money effectively, “I think we will be in good shape. Will we be ahead of the curve? I don’t think so. There’s just that much need out there.”

It’s a pragmatic answer for a pragmatic goal, which is to mitigate damage, not expect to avoid it.

In the meantime, towns can and should do their best to maintain wetlands and other natural features that mitigate flooding as well as restrict flood-prone areas to development — measures that aren’t as easy to do as one might think. That’s because many of Vermont’s communities are built along waterways and many of its roads follow the canyons carved out by the state’s streams and rivers — all part of the state’s natural evolution we have to cope with today.