Vermont Floods July 2024

Originally Posted 7/13/24

Event Date: 7/10/24

image of a flooded street in a city. You can seem some cars trying to get through the water

Vermont Flooded... Again

Exactly one year from the last time Vermont flooded badly, Vermont floods again. Thankfully I don't think it was nearly as bad as it was last time, but it was a sort of surreal experience.

Last year my girlfriend and I evacuated before the rain got really bad, so we didn't see most of the flood as it was happening. This year it sort of snuck up on us on how bad it was going to be, and so did not get out in time. We took some photos from where we live of the floods, and it was just... crazy seeing our street turn into a river.

A woman can be seen taking a photo with her phone, which is pointed off camera. In the rest of the photo, you can see a lot of mud and flooded streets in a city area. A photo of a flooded city street, with a bright blue Prius in it. The water is almost to the bottom of the prius doors

One thing that was also kind of nuts, is that blue car is a work car I'm using, and so I went out to move it to higher ground. But then I got sort of... trapped? Because the only way back to my apartment was to go across a bit of fast moving water. I sort of hemmed and hawed for a bit, before making it back over. The current was really strong and I had to cross a section without anything to hold onto. I moved my feet sort of inch by inch and made it, but had I lifted my feet up I could've easily gotten knocked over. On top of that, once I was back to my driveway, I suddenly became worried about anything in the water that might hit me... The current had been strong enough to carry pieces of wood. Luckily I made it back to the house fine.

A night time photo of water rushing through a street and past a fence and parking lot, with a man in the distance trying to wade through the water A night time photo of water flooding a driveway and surrounding streets with a man leaning on a gate while wading through the water

After that, Michelle and I sort of just sat on our porch on the 2nd floor and watched. Eventually the Vermont National Guard came, and it was cool to see them at work. Here are some videos from the night (it should be a playlist with 5 videos in it):

That night I did not go to bed until late, and had trouble sleeping. Between the flooding itself and the fact I had a wedding the next day, my nerves were sort of fried. One thing we learned too from our downstairs neighbor was there was a hole in our basement wall, and water was gushing in. Given that's where our electrical panel is, I was sure we'd lose power.

Luckily we never lost power, and the next morning I looked outside to see the damages:

photo from out a window overlooking a driveway. Deep ruts can be seen in the dirt driveway, as well as a lot of debris washed up along a fence photo of a deep rut with sandy sort of mud in a dirty driveway Another view of the rut from above, but also a longer view of the driveway where you can see multiple ruts and a lot of debris A red Subary Outback on a dirt driveway with a lot of wood sticking out from underneath it, and a lot of the dirt washed away from under the tires

I felt really lucky I never stepped into any of those ruts on my way back to the house. I also felt extremely grateful that my car had survived, and had no damages. It started up right away the next day, and has been working great since.

Overall the experience was stressful but we're okay which is the important part. It really sucks for this area of Vermont, as there were still places recovering from last years floods, and now they've just taken more damage. I have a coworker who just bought a house only for it to immediately get flooded. Just a horrible thing to have to deal with, especially two years in a row.