Althouse: Vermont.

July 11, 2023

Vermont.

Video at Twitter here.

An update from Montpelier at 11:50 a.m. on Tuesday #VTflood23 pic.twitter.com/bq619cnOnO
— Vermont Public (@vermontpublic) July 11, 2023

40 comments:

Dave Begley said...: Climate change caused the flooding. No doubt about it.; 7/11/23, 1:15 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Don't build in low spots.; 7/11/23, 1:18 PM
Mason G said...: This will certainly get the Climate Change Cultists excited.; 7/11/23, 1:21 PM
Vonnegan said...: Aren't towns like Montpelier built on river floodplains? I remember a discussion about that when Irene hit the Adirondacks (where I grew up) and the damage so much was worse in all the river towns. Never thought about it before then, but once it was said it made perfect sense. The mountains open up a bit and you have this lovely place to build a town on the river but hey, take a look at what's really going on geographically. So this is going to happen every so often, no matter what.; 7/11/23, 1:32 PM
rehajm said...: …Yah it’s bad…but I’m middle aged and can recall three or four years with apocalyptic flooding in VT. The Lemoile flooding over a few years ago…there’s a picture of great grandpa hangs on my wall where he’s delivering mail in downtown White River Jct in waist high water…

…and yes, don’t build your stuff near the river. Head for the hills…; 7/11/23, 1:34 PM
gilbar said...: i Don't mean to be rude, or callous, or insensitive ..
BUT:
wasn't ALL of Vermont (the land, the buildings, the ice cream factories), STOLEN from the native Americans?
What Right to these THIEVES have, to Even EXIST?
(asking for a friend that read the back of an ice cream carton); 7/11/23, 1:47 PM
gilbar said...: they TOLD us, that Mad Made Global Warming, caused by Man Made CO2 would cause DROUGHTS..
So, we cut back on our CO2 production... NOW Look at the problems WE have caused!!!
CO2 could have prevented ALL of this! Next time you see an electric car... It's THEIR Fault!; 7/11/23, 1:49 PM
Gusty Winds said...: When I lived in Elmhurst, IL, after the McMansion boom starting around 2004, the storm and sanitary infrastructure pipes would charge if your wife cried. Constant flooding. Plus all the electrical was overhead and if tree branches started to fly, they took down power lines all the time. Then, your sump pump wouldn't run and you'd flood. There were weeks where all you could hear were generators running.

My house in Sussex, WI is on the ridge of a hill. High ground. Now, in Sussex the water flows downhill away from my foundation and all the electric in underground. My sump pump has cob webs. Thank you Jesus!!; 7/11/23, 2:12 PM
Gusty Winds said...: Was talking to a retired, liberal teacher last week. She was bitching about insurance rates going up in FL and that "DeSantis isn't doing anything about it"! Last hurricane did $114 billion in damage. If you're going to live by the ocean during hurricane season...you might get some water and pay out the ass for mediocre homeowners insurance.

Just Googled and found this:
Montpelier is a flat clay zone with an elevation of about 520 feet surrounded by hills and granite ledges. All of these factors make it subject to periodic flooding, including the destructive Great Vermont Flood of 1927.

From what I understand there was no global warming in 1927.; 7/11/23, 2:18 PM
iowan2 said...: 30 years ago about 3 weeks from now was the 1993 Iowa floods. Flooded many of the Iowa tributary rivers that feed the Mississippi. Des Moines lost its drinking water when the water plant flooded. The Des Moines and Racoon river come together there, and swamped the treatment plant.

We feel your pain.; 7/11/23, 2:18 PM
iowan2 said...: Don't build in low spots.

Much of the damage is not in flood plains.; 7/11/23, 2:19 PM
Breezy said...: We drove by there just yesterday. I swear this was not our fault this time.; 7/11/23, 2:20 PM
Michael K said...: Maybe opposition to dams and water management, like in California, is responsible. I wouldn't be surprised with the politics of Vermont. When I lived in New Hampshire 30 years ago, they called it "Peoples Republic of Vermont."; 7/11/23, 2:20 PM
Quaestor said...: Mother Nature demands Ben & Jerry's surrender business and profits to red man. Red man have bill of sale. Heap good Mother Nature signature on dotted line. Mother nature not heap good on geography. Use Apple Maps and flood Montpelier. Heap sorry.

--OR--

Mother Nature got A-double-plus in high school French. Heap angry over "Mont-peely-ur".; 7/11/23, 2:22 PM
Bob Boyd said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/11/23, 2:37 PM
Quaestor said...: "No doubt about it."

Right you, are Dave. In the recent past, a week or so at least, it was the Winooski Glacier. Why you'd need to dam on a glacier, I don't know, but the Winooski Glacier has several. One of them, the One (clever name) is known to the Guinness Book of World Records as "the world's most intelligent dam". How Guinness measured that is not specified. Probably used a standardized test.

The problem with flood control dams is no matter how high they're built, they're never quite high enough. Well, as a wise man once said, when it comes to rivers prone to flood, you're dammed if you do and dammed if you don't.; 7/11/23, 2:42 PM
MadisonMan said...: I recall in 1972 when water went over the spillway at Little Pine State Park in Tiadaghton State Forest in PA. Took out the bridge beneath the dam too. You don't mess with flood waters. They'll win.; 7/11/23, 3:07 PM
Big Mike said...: It’s what happens when your state government prefers to spend money on progressive causes instead of mundane stuff like flood control.; 7/11/23, 3:17 PM
Heartless Aztec said...: Has Ben and Jerry's been swept away yet? Asking for a friend.; 7/11/23, 4:11 PM
Kate said...: When we were a young couple with only 2 kids, my husband and I wanted to move to Montpelier. The golden state dome, the New England beauty, and the small town feel all charmed us. We still joke about its idyllic memory.

However, our visit made clear that the elite lived there. Regular folk on a lower middle class income didn't stand a chance of finding work. When we eventually climbed into a higher income bracket, we had found other lovely places to live. Sorry to see them under water, though.; 7/11/23, 4:21 PM
gspencer said...: Ben & Jerry will be sending over some Canoe Pudding.; 7/11/23, 4:26 PM
Jaq said...: Those Vermont Strong license plates from Irene had just about disappeared, too. I never saw it rain so hard, even in hurricanes, as this storm, though.

I don’t watch the news, but it seems like a lot of my family and friends do, based on the texts and calls. Lots of towns in Vermont are connected by one road through a river valley, so flooding can hit here kind of hard. It missed me. Larry, Daryl, and Daryl will be busy for many weeks.; 7/11/23, 4:46 PM
Jaq said...: Remember that final scene in Newhart when he woke up next to Suzanne Pleshett and said “I just had the craziest dream.”; 7/11/23, 5:02 PM
The Godfather said...: Some of my 17th and 18th century ancestors settled in New England: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and -- yes, eventually -- Vermont. In those days, you built your towns near water, because it was water that connected you with the rest of the world. After the industrial revolution got started, it was water power that drove the early industries. Vermont was such a "backwater" that at the time the Constitution was adopted, it wasn't a State or part of any State (New York and Massachusetts claimed it, but each seemed eager to surrender their claim to the other). Vermont became our 14th State, and the first State with a constitution that banned slavery.
Mark Twain settled in Hartford, Connecticut when he became rich and successful. His house is still there. He said that if you don't like the weather in New England, wait a minute. Although he wasn't a native New Englander, I think Twain had a New England attitude. Read "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court".
I've lived in New England, the mid-Atlantic, the upper South, south Florida, and the Carolinas. I have yet to find a place that's not subject to bad weather.; 7/11/23, 5:29 PM
KellyM said...: @rehajm: The Lamoille and Gihon Rivers run right through my little hometown, and they have both flooded badly, leaving the village again knee-deep in water. The thing is that businesses were just getting back on their feet from the last round of bad flooding. This is going to be the end of it for the local supermarket. and likely other businesses, too. My parents' home is fine, as it's perched on a hill out of town, but given the flash flood nature of this, there could be damage and debris everywhere.; 7/11/23, 5:55 PM
Iman said...: “I don’t watch the news, but it seems like a lot of my family and friends do, based on the texts and calls.”

POWERBALL!!!; 7/11/23, 6:30 PM
hpudding said...: It’s ok. The do-nothing, know-it-all conservatives arrogantly assure everyone that the economic and social losses of washing away entire towns is worth the profit that they’ll give to oil and gas extraction companies for it. Like virgins thrown into the volcano, they literally want to sacrifice your city to pacify what they see as gods in the form of the fossil fuel CEOs. They see this kind of chaos and destruction as good things. More of them help these insensate zombies feel almost alive in the way that normal human beings already do.; 7/11/23, 6:36 PM
hpudding said...: It’s ok. The do-nothing, know-it-all conservatives arrogantly assure everyone that the economic and social losses of washing away entire towns is worth the profit that they’ll give to oil and gas extraction companies for it. Like virgins thrown into the volcano, they literally want to sacrifice your city to pacify what they see as gods in the form of the fossil fuel CEOs. They see this kind of chaos and destruction as good things. More of them help these insensate zombies feel almost alive in the way that normal human beings already do.; 7/11/23, 6:37 PM
madAsHell said...: I profoundly dislike talking heads proclaiming a crisis, and doing nothing to help.; 7/11/23, 7:02 PM
Assistant Village Idiot said...: My granddaughters are upset about camp being cancelled in Swanzey, NH. An entrance road is destroyed, and even as the water goes down there is not a good way to get cars out.; 7/11/23, 7:07 PM
RBE said...: I live in the mountains of Vermont and near some of the worst flooding. Many towns were built near the rivers about 150 years ago or so for practical reasons such as industry and navigation that made it worth the risk of flooding. Near me are some very effective flood control dams. Most of us who live in small town Vermont are pretty resourceful, work together to get any mess cleaned up despite political differences. Hard to live in a bubble in Vermont...except maybe in Burlington or Montpelier. Probably most small towns in the US are like Vermont's...I hope.; 7/11/23, 8:01 PM
PM said...: California's Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi, had disappeared for a hundred years until this year when it reappeared in full force due to heavy storms brought on by that recurring oceanic phenom known as La Nina.; 7/11/23, 8:36 PM
farmgirl said...: RBE: we’re in the NEK by the border.
Good luck to you.

Poor Johnson.; 7/11/23, 9:26 PM
farmgirl said...: KellyM- I saw.
:0(; 7/11/23, 9:35 PM
farmgirl said...: https://www.wcax.com/2023/07/11/flooding-above-birds-eye-view-damage-winooski-river-valley/; 7/11/23, 9:56 PM
Rusty said...: I sure hope the syrup is OK.; 7/11/23, 10:33 PM
Iman said...: Good luck to all in Vermont. Stay safe!; 7/11/23, 10:56 PM
KellyM said...: @farmgirl & RBE: I haven't lived there for many years, but did return last summer to spend time at the old homestead. So much was still the same.

I know the families who live in Johnson and environs will pull thru, but it's been at least five serious floods in that area since 1996 so there's only so much businesses can take. The town has a state college campus, so that might help get aid there quickly. I understand the college has said they'd help with emergency housing for residents who need a place to be temporarily.; 7/11/23, 11:15 PM
s'opihjerdt said...: I assume that this is the same rain storm that extinguished the Quebec wildfires.; 7/12/23, 9:39 AM
Dave Begley said...: Chris Hayes on MSNBC just blamed the VT floods on climate change. He cited the NYT.; 7/12/23, 8:01 PM