Freak Flash Flood

Downtown Barre - Main Street

North Main Street, Barre


Our backyard!




Barre, VT



This is the bottom of our driveway


Upon returning to Vermont from Cape Cod we were greeted by "Driveway Devastation". The lower portion of our driveway was almost completely washed out, leaving an 8-foot gulley where we used to drive. Fortunately there was enough left so we could squeeze by and get home. Unfortunately, our driveway washed tons of gravel down to the main road and on to our neighbors yards. We weren't alone, Orange County and Barre were hit hard with many roads closed, several bridges lost and undoubtedly millions of dollars of damage. Downtown Barre was hit severely with reports of 6-feet of water on Main Street.





Here's the 8-foot gulley! The water washed down the side of our hill and exploded into the side of our driveway, sending tons of gravel down to the street below and on to our neighbor's lawns and Thayer Brook Road!






Here's a copy of the report which appeared on WCAX- Channel 3 in Burlington:



Barre was just one of several communities swamped by the flash floods last night.
Orange County was also hard hit ... including the town of Randolph.
In Randolph state road crews were shoring up culverts that had been torn up by the torrential downpour.
"They'll be temporary repairs similar to this one here. And we'll get some blacktop and start doing more permanent repairs over the next several weeks probably," explained Robert Childs, one of the Vermont Dept of Transportation crew members working in culvert repairs along Route 12.
But the culvert damage on Route 12 was nothing compared to the damage on a couple of Randolph's town roads.
The flash floods washed away most of Mason Road and Howard Hill Road, leaving both roads little more than deep gullies and completely impassable.
"It was a rippling torrent rushing across the road here and behind that brick house there," said Richard Bowen, a lifelong Randolph resident who had a front-row view as the deluge washed away Howard Hill Road.
"About 8 or 10 years ago we had a washout which washed out the culvert right here but nothing anywhere near as bad as what has been here and I lived here most of my life, 67 years, and never seen it wash out this bad before," said Bowen.
The flash floods were a baptism of fire for Randolph's new Public Works Director John Rotter. He spent Thursday assessing the damage to apply for federal emergency funds.
"Probably about $400,000 just in this town. And that's even just a preliminary. There might be another $100,000 on roads I haven't been able to assess yet," said Rotter.
Down the road in Bethel, the normally tiny Upper Camp Brook became a monster that tore a large chunk out of the Upper Camp Brook Road.
Longtime resident Scott Hill said "it wasn't as bad as 1971 when flash floods washed away the whole road, but this one was scary."
"It had me up all night because the brook was roaring right by my back window," he added.
But the worst damage may have been in neighboring Stockbridge where the raging White River washed away a camp and small bridge on a road that connects Rte. 107 and Rte. 100. Stockbridge also had its share of collapsed culverts.
For road crews, the record rainfall adds up to many weeks -- possibly months -- of repair work.
Brian Joyce -- Channel 3 News