2 killed in Vermont flooding brought on by Beryl’s remnants

MARSHFIELD, Vt. — New England didn’t receive a direct blow from Hurricane Beryl, but its remnants caused serious damage in the northern part of the region and heavy flooding which left two people dead in Vermont, officials said.

Both men died when their vehicles became submerged in floodwaters, Vermont authorities said.

Vermont State Police reported that on Wednesday night, 33-year-old Dylan Kempton died when a culvert breached and swept away the utility task vehicle as he was on his way home in the town of Peacham.

His body was recovered by search crews Thursday morning.

Late Thursday morning, 73-year-old John Rice of Concord died when his car was swept off the road by floodwaters about 250 feet into a hay field that was under 10 feet of water, police in the village of Lyndonville reported.

Witnesses told Lyndonville Police Chief Jack Harris that Rice had ignored a group of people who had advised him not to drive into the area where his vehicle was washed away.

Early Thursday evening, following a lengthy search, Rice’s body was recovered by a swift water rescue team, Harris said.

Apartment building swept away by floodwaters

The remnants of Beryl dumped heavy rain on Vermont, washing away much of an apartment building, knocking out bridges and cutting off towns, and retraumatizing a state still recovering from catastrophic floods that hit a year ago to the day. 

More than 100 people were rescued by swift-water teams during the worst of the rainfall, which started Wednesday and continued into Thursday, officials said. In Plainfield, residents of a six-unit apartment building had mere minutes to evacuate before water destroyed it, the town’s emergency management director said.

Stunned residents emerged Thursday to assess damage in a series of small towns along a hilly corridor on the Winooski River, connected mostly by U.S. Highway 2. Parts of the artery were closed, along with dozens of other roads. Shelters opened in several communities.

The deluge dropped more than 6 inches of rain on parts of Vermont, and the heaviest rainfall was in the same areas devastated on July 10, 2023, said Marlon Verasamy, of the National Weather Service in Burlington. Rivers had crested at virtually all locations by late Thursday afternoon.

“It’s not lost on any of us the irony of the flood falling on the one-year anniversary to the day when many towns were hit last year,” Vermont Gov. Phil Scott told reporters.

The towns hit hardest by Beryl’s rains lie east of the capital, Montpelier, which flooded last year but escaped serious damage this week.

In Plainfield, a concrete bridge that collapsed and tumbled downstream was likely responsible for ripping off part of an apartment building with five units, said Michael Billingsley, the town’s emergency management director.

The occupant of another home was pulled through a window to safety moments before it was swept downstream, and a mobile home floated away with four pets belonging to a family that narrowly escaped, he said.

Hilary Conant said she had to flee her apartment as the Great Brook rose, just as she did a year earlier.

“It’s like rewind to last year,” she said. “The water was coming up, so I knew it was time to leave with my dog. It’s very retraumatizing.” A neighbor offered a camper. She and her dog, Casper, sheltered Thursday at Goddard College, which opened dorm rooms to displaced residents.

Around the corner from her home was the apartment building that collapsed. The front still stood, but the rest was wrecked or gone. “It’s otherworldly,” she said. “It’s devastating.”

Storm damage in New England

Six tornadoes hit western New York on Wednesday, damaging homes and barns and uprooting trees, the weather service said. Some areas of the state got 4 or more inches of rain, causing water to rush down streets in the village of Lowville.

Flash flooding also closed roads in several northern New Hampshire communities, including Monroe, Dalton, Lancaster and Littleton, where officials said 20 people were temporarily stranded at a Walmart store and crews made water rescues.

Resilience efforts appeared to pay off in Vermont. Flood control dams were “performing phenomenally” other than the breach of one dam with minimal impact to property or roads, said Jason Batchelder, state environmental commissioner.

But the damage — coming as some residents still await federal disaster-assistance checks from the floods a year ago — was still a bitter pill to swallow.

“It’s tough to watch folks in your community suffer and go through this again,” said Thom Lauzon, the mayor of hard-hit Barre.

Even though Vermont is not a coastal state, it has experience with tropical weather. Tropical Storm Irene dumped 11 inches of rain on parts of Vermont in 24 hours in 2011. The storm killed six in the state, washed homes off their foundations, and damaged or destroyed more than 200 bridges and 500 miles of highway.

In May, Vermont became the first state to enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a share of the damage caused by extreme weather fanned by climate change. Scott, a Republican, allowed the bill to become law without his signature, saying he was concerned about the costs of a grueling legal fight. But he acknowledged a need.

“Climate change is real,” Scott said Thursday. “I think we all need to come to grips with that regardless of your political persuasion and deal with it, because we need to build back stronger, safer and smarter.”

Hurricane Beryl blamed for at least 9 U.S. deaths

Beryl, blamed for at least nine U.S. deaths — including six in Texas and one in Louisiana — and 11 in the Caribbean, landed in Texas on Monday as a Category 1 hurricane and left millions in the Houston area without power. It then cut across the interior U.S. as a post-tropical cyclone that brought flooding and sometimes tornadoes from the Great Lakes to Canada and northern New England. 

A little more than one million homes and businesses in the Houston area still lacked electricity Thursday evening, down from a peak of over 2.7 million on Monday, according to utility tracker PowerOutage.us.

The storm has caused at least $3.3 billion in damage in the U.S., Mexico and the Caribbean, according to Karen Clark & Company, a Boston-based firm that works with insurance companies to estimate disaster costs.

It calculated a flash estimate Thursday of $2.7 billion in privately insured U.S. losses, along with $510 million in the Caribbean and $90 million in Mexico. The estimate is only for insured properties and does not include homes covered by the U.S. National Flood Insurance Program, so total losses will be higher.

Evacuations in Vermont

Parts of northern New York and New England, including Vermont, were under flood watches or warnings early Thursday. Thunderstorms associated with Beryl were forecast for much of the East Coast through Friday, the National Weather Service said.

Vermont Emergency Management said Wednesday night there had been an unspecified number of evacuations and road closures due to flooding, primarily in the central part of the state.

“Vermonters and visitors are encouraged to seek higher ground should floodwaters approach,” the statement said. Rescue teams and the National Guard were at the ready, the agency said.

The weather service had said Wednesday that the storm “will not be like last July’s catastrophic flooding but will still pose real dangers where flash flooding occurs.”

Vermont, far inland, nonetheless has experience with tropical weather. Tropical Storm Irene dumped 11 inches of rain on parts of Vermont in 24 hours in 2011. The storm killed six in the state, washed homes off their foundations, and damaged or destroyed more than 200 bridges and 500 miles of highway.