Vermont Officials Assess Spring Flood Damage

Vermont state and local officials are assessing damage from flooding caused by heavy rains and snowmelt that led to road closures, some evacuations and a rescue from a flooded parking lot.

Some roads remained closed Tuesday, but most of the water had receded. No injuries were reported.

Among the hardest hit areas Sunday night and Monday were along the White River in Bethel and Stockbridge, in the Londonderry area and along the Otter Creek in Rutland County, said Mark Bosma, a spokesman for Vermont Emergency Management.

If the damage reaches a certain threshold, the state could apply to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for disaster assistance

“Oh it was crazy,” Herb Kuendig, an emergency management coordinator for the town of Pittsfield, told NECN-TV.

“It just happened so quickly over the night,” he said. “No one realized what was going on until the morning.”

A snowboarder from Niagara Falls, New York, slept in his vehicle in a parking lot in Killington overnight and awoke to rising waters, police said. He had planned to snowboard at Killington Resort Monday. He heard the rain overnight but didn’t realize the flooding until it was too late, police said. Emergency crews rescued him by boat.

The flooding marked the first time since Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 that floodwaters from the White River rose onto Route 107 in the Bethel-Stockbridge area, the Transportation Agency’s Ernie Patnoe said Tuesday. The 2011 flooding destroyed much of the major east-west highway in the area. It was rebuilt in 119 days and constructed to withstand future flooding.

Patnoe said the highway passed its first test. “The roadway performed as expected and received no significant damage,” he said.