Thetford
State and local officials believe the destruction in several central Vermont counties could fit the criteria for a declaration, which would open the door for financial assistance, so this week, they started walking Federal Emergency Management Agency officials through the worst spots, Vermont Emergency Management Recovery and Mitigation Section Chief Ben Rose said.
“We want to show FEMA the full extent of the damage that occurred,” Rose said on Wednesday’s tour through Thetford.
The road forward is long and complex, Rose said, but Wednesday marked a starting point. For Vermont, the basic threshold for a major declaration request is $1 million in statewide damage. Damage also must be over $3.56 per capita for a county to qualify for aid.
Gov. Phil Scott would be the one to make a request to President Donald Trump, who ultimately would decide. When that request will be made isn’t yet known, Rose said, but the state generally has 30 days from the incident to make such a request.
Preliminary estimates show Thetford was the town in Orange County that suffered the most damage. Thetford Selectboard Chairman Stuart Rogers said about 75 percent of town roads were damaged in the thunderstorms, to the tune of nearly $1 million.
At least one road will be closed indefinitely — or until federal assistance comes through, he said. Officials viewed that damage on Stevens Road early on during Wednesday’s inspection; many of the representatives made an audible noise when approaching the spot in the road, which was completely washed out.
A 40-foot culvert separated into two 20-foot sections. One half still sat in its original spot under the roadway, while the other half washed about 50 yards down the brook.
On the night of July 1, Rogers and Thetford Road Foreman Chad Martin were out assessing damage and rolled up to Stevens Road in the dead of night, the men recalled on Wednesday.
“What’s that noise?” one of the men said to the other that night.
Together, they whipped out flashlights and cautiously walked toward the sound.
“We’ve got a problem,” Rogers told Martin. The brook had risen to where the road was. The road was no longer there.
“I thought, Oh dear, this can’t be good,” Martin said, motioning to the group where the water levels were. “I kid you not, from there to there was solid water.”
The first stop on Wednesday’s tour was another spot in town that suffered crippling damage. Cranberry Hill Road, a short dead end off Godfrey Road, had a culvert blow out completely, evidence of which sat nearly a football field’s legth down that brook on Wednesday.
A smaller, temporary culvert has since been installed and the road has been patched up to allow single-file traffic to pass through. The culvert that was washed away on July 1 previously had been replaced during Tropical Storm Irene, Roberts said.
He said his hope is that this time a bigger and stronger replacement can be installed to avoid a similar situation from happening in a future heavy storm.
It has been FEMA’s standard operating procedure to replace damages to their pre-disaster condition, but FEMA Hazard Mitigation Specialist Marc Tate said there are ways to wrap the costs for improvements into the agency’s percentage of the project’s cost. That amount typically is 75 percent, while the state and town normally divvy up the remaining 25 percent. Depending on several factors, Rose, with the state of Vermont, said the state could pay a minimum of 7.5 percent and maximum of 17.5 percent.
The process of making improvements to problem areas involves many steps and can prove complicated, Tate acknowledged. The town would need to have an expert perform a special study that would outline the needs for a particular area. If that expert outlined that the culvert should be made larger, for example, there is a chance the cost of doing so could be rolled into FEMA’s share, Tate said, noting there are some restrictions.
He said that practice isn’t new but has been done more frequently since Irene wreaked havoc on the state.
Residents on Cranberry Hill Road were completely cut off after the July 1 floods, including Gene Kadish and Karen Fryer, who were out at the end of their driveway on Wednesday, perhaps emerging from their secluded home because there was a convoy of vehicles traversing the road to survey the damage.
“As you can see, we are back,” Fryer said with a smile.
“Hopefully we will get a FEMA declaration,” Kadish added.
That money won’t help private homeowners who suffered damages, such as Fryer and Kadish, who lost their driveway, but it would help municipalities to bounce back.
FEMA officials said they hope to tour Norwich today and provide preliminary damage assessments. State officials estimate that town suffered roughly $740,000 in damage.
The Norwich Selectboard on Wednesday night approved the use of up to $350,000 in operating funds to cover anticipated bills from repairs to town roads.
Acting Town Manager Phil Dechert said the vote was a retroactive way to ratify spending on emergency work that, under normal town policy, would have been put out to bid. Future storm expenditures will follow this more usual process, but on the night in question certain repairs needed to be done immediately, he said.
The July 1 storm didn’t only destroy roads, bridges and culverts in Vermont. New Hampshire also took a beating, including Orford and Lyme. Local officials in those towns estimate the damage at $6 million and up to $5 million, respectively.
Orford’s Route 25A, the road that suffered the most damage in the recent storm according to New Hampshire Department of Transportation spokesman Bill Boynton, reopened to one lane on Tuesday.
It took nearly 350 dump truck loads of stone and gravel to fill the gaping holes in the road, which had depths of 15 to 20 feet, Boynton said.
The route could be fully reopened from Orford to Wentworth, N.H., by Friday night.
State officials in New Hampshire are going through a similar process as Vermont. FEMA officials began preliminary assessments in the Granite State last week.
Twin State officials continue to worry about the weather forecast in the coming weeks.
The ground is saturated and another harsh storm could lead to downed trees and power lines, and more road damage.
Rogers, of Thetford, said he is eager to get the town put back together.
“It is going to be a long process,” he said. “My biggest concern is whatever we get for weather now. Everything is so fragile and it won’t take much to wash things out again.”
Jordan Cuddemi can be reached at jcuddemi@vnews.com or 603-727-3248.