Guess we got lucky, some would say. We didn't have her as a hurricane, "just" an overhyped tropical storm. And it wasn't even that impressive as a TS goes, wind wise. So here is what we've got:

-3 dead
-2 MIA (known)
-every single major road has places where it is out, 260+ and a extensive stretch of one of the three E-W main roads doesn't exist any more (Rt 4) while both of the others have smaller outages
-35 bridges closed, several of them are just gone
-several electrical substations submerged, I've heard that one is just gone
-about 10% of the population lost power, half of those still don't and about half of THEM will be several weeks without (and most of those folks have well water- no power = no running water)
-Rutland, Montpelier, Barre and other downtowns had extensive flooding.
-11 towns are completely cut off by bridge outages or flooding
-several dams which are dangerously full, with a few small ones having failed
-extensive petro and ag chem contamination of waterways
-several public water and sewage treatment facilities under water

Things I haven't heard a lot about are live stock and crops, but I passed several farms this morning and this evening. I saw one barn that had water up to its second story, others with water up to the half way point, and several corn fields where the corn was less than a foot above water if that much. Keeping in mind that a lot of farmers lost their original planting in a series of floods this spring, so this is the replacement planting which was short and stunted to begin with. The last cut of hay was still in fields for a few farms Saturday and Friday, so that might be lost for several folks. Upshot of that is that there is possibly lost live stock, lost milking machines and lost feed crops- those lead to lost farms.

There were also a number of businesses that already rebuilt once this year.

The thing I haven't heard anything about is the ski areas, if they lost lifts or had major erosion damage to the slopes. Thats a lot of money that is up in the air.

And this was after floods this spring that were the worst I'd seen in my life at that point, which took out several bridges, power lines, road beds, homes, barns, crops...

All of this in a state with a population of less than three quarters of a million, which has been kicked in the groin for the past 10 years economically, which doesn't have a billion dollar budget.

Yeah, "just" a tropical storm.

I am currently listening to an interview with the Governor- he's not sure how many of the old covered bridges are left.

Thats a very specific turn of phrase, and it's kinda scary, that suggests that there is more than were being counted by the transportation agency are out. *shakes head* There were towns that didn't recover fully from the '28 flood for a decade. If the rebuild is that slow, it won't matter, those towns will be empty.

Gah, my heart goes out for Vermont. I used to bum around that state a lot during my years at RPI. There was a bagel place in downtown Bennington, right on the river there. The DW and I used to drive there on nice fall Saturdays to have their bagels. It's probably gone...

Glad you're safe, friend. How's your family doing in all this?
-Blast

My brother actually rolled down to NYC with part of his rescue squad on Friday along with some of their water rescue gear, he's good. I think they were to come back tonight. I won't comment on sending VT and NH and upstate NY resources to NYC and NJ when every model had this thing rolling up either the Connecticut River or Champlain valleys, although I think there must have been a way to get teams from out west on to Gaurd C-130s....

Neither of us have gotten a call back from our folks, but cell coverage their way is sub par at the best of times and it's pretty much a given than their landline and power is out for a day or two at a minimum. If there was something really wrong, the fire chief would have called us both by now, so back up message methods are in use.

And yeah, anything in downtown Bennington probably isn't looking so good right now. part of their water supply is suspected to be contaminated but not all of it, and they have a few hundred feet of broken pipe through their entire system. They have the tanks and the little pumps, so assuming no fires break out and they can get the emergency patches done, they should have the hospital and schools should have water late tuesday or wensday, but anyone on the higher ground is going to have to have water trucked in for a while. Their big water kicker is that the filtration plant main line ran under a bridge that used to be part of Rt 9- no bridge any more, fell down and smashed the water main, so even once they do have water I'm not sure how long the boil water orders will last. From what I've heard, the contractors who were working on the bypass have agreed to go into recovery and stabilization mode for the foreseeable.

Montpelier almost was a total loss- it was turning into a debate between openning the spill ways on a flood control damn all the way and just trying to drain the pressure in a semi-controlled manner, or risk the dam and not put another four-five feet of water running down State St. Didn't come down to that point, which is a good thing, but I don't think you could get anything not made by John Deere, IH or Catepiller down it this morning.

We apparently have some bridges so badly undercut that the inspectors didn't even want to try to walk across them. It wouldn't be so bad if they were on back roads, but some of these are on numbered state highways. I'm thinking of one in particular that is right by a high school- if it isn't usable, then there is going to be some interesting shuffling becuase it is a 50 mile detour.

Right now I'm hampered by having to go on the mass media for data, I'm not getting much first hand ground truth. I don't know anything about the Connecticut River side of the state or NH, for example.

Am I the only Vermonter left here?

If Vermont HAD been hit by the hurricane, WITH the wind, WITH the flooding, WITH tornadoes, it would probably have been scoured right off the map!

It's horrible enough as it is. All those poor people! It's been said several times at ETS that the belongings don't matter as long as you've got your lives, but what happens when that's all that's left -- no belongings, no home, no car, no roads, no job, no local businesses, just the clothes on your back?

How do you just pick up and start over?

In Catskill Communities, Survivors Are Left With Little but Their Lives

Sue

Ironraven,
I've been watching this unfold from the other side of the pond. If this much damage has been done by a "mere" - and I had better not hear anyone to use that term in front of the bereaved - tropical storm, one shudders to think what an "average" hurricane would have done. Or a Katrina.

One interesting point worth noting is the attack of acute post storm sheeplitise. As in it did not come to the worse therefore everyone has over reacted.
Might make an interesting subject for the next FEMA meeting.

Nope, I'm still here, just not contributing much. I live in Burlington which had very little damage. My FD Malletts Bay Fire Dept only had 4 calls the whole storm period,first was at 1500 and last at 2230. Down "powerlines" (really phone lines) only one tree on a house and a fire alarm. We got lucky for the most part. Realatively flat,and away from the mountains so flash floding is not much of an issue. The Winooski river is nearby but is on a lower elevation than the city itself.

When were you at RPI? I used to work in East Greenbush and have family in Albany.

I feel so bad for those in the path of the devastation. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around it.

I stay far from all downed lines, but is there a simple way to tell the difference between a power line and a phone line? From a distance?

Sue