Drive through the small Northeast Kingdom town of Newark on this week’s anniversaries of July floods in 2023 and 2024 and you’ll discover highways repaired, 2023 cleanup costs paid and 2024 debts soon to be settled.
“We’re fortunate,” Newark Town Clerk Amber Holden said of damage totaling less than $300,000.
But surrounding communities, still rebuilding from nearly $1 billion in estimated destruction statewide, face rockier roads.
The town of Lyndon, for example, has secured a $18.9 million line of credit — more than double its $7.4 million annual budget — to repair miles of pavement, the municipal office building, water and sewer plants and a historic covered bridge. While federal and state reimbursements have fully covered the $500,000 in eligible damage from 2023, the town has received just $140,000 toward $14 million in 2024 expenses.
“People see things are back to normal, but they don’t understand how much paperwork remains,” Lyndon Municipal Administrator Justin Smith said. “What’s left is pretty astronomical.”
Neighboring communities are awaiting their own fixes and funds to replace inundated infrastructure, be it Cabot for a new $8 million public safety building or Marshfield for a $8.3 million package of four bridges and three culverts.
“We’ll be wrestling with this for years to come,” said Bram Towbin, town clerk for nearby Plainfield, which is working to reopen its Brook Road artery and recoup more than $8 million in repair costs.
The story’s the same in dozens of cities and towns on the anniversaries of what the National Weather Service calls “The Great Vermont Flood of 2023” and “The Significant Flooding and Severe Weather Event of 2024.”
“We’ve said from the beginning this is a long process,” said Douglas Farnham, the state’s chief recovery officer. “We still have a lot of progress to make.”
‘We have to find the money’
Up to 200 of Vermont’s 247 cities and towns reported flooding in the past two years, with a VTDigger survey finding several dozen still awash in red ink and repairs. Yet amid the slog, local and state leaders see reasons for optimism.
Vermont’s “Great Flood of 1927,” whose destruction would total up to $4 billion today, required four years of rebuilding, according to historians. Tropical Storm Irene hit so hard in 2011 that the state was finishing a few final projects when the 2023 deluge struck a dozen years later.
“It’s not as quickly as we would like,” Farnham said of the current recovery effort, “but it is consistent with our historical experience.”
Even so, the state has found cleaning up after the 2023 and 2024 storms to be uniquely challenging. The back-to-back floods ravaged freshly rebuilt infrastructure. Then the return of President Donald Trump in January raised concerns about potential cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which had previously promised to cover 75% to 90% of Vermont’s recovery costs.
“The 2024 flooding destroyed pretty much everything we had repaired in 2023,” Michael Webber, Bolton’s town clerk and treasurer, said in February. “In a good year, you never knew how long FEMA would take. Who knows what’s going to happen now?”
But after a pause in federal funding this winter, local leaders reported money flowing again this spring. FEMA, which had reimbursed Vermont about $110 million for 2023 flooding and $10 million for 2024 damage just before Trump’s return, has since raised those payments by $65 million to $175 million for 2023 and by $5 million to $15 million for 2024, according to state figures.
FEMA declined to provide specifics about individual communities “for privacy reasons” and added only that reimbursement timelines “will vary by weeks or months” depending on the complexity of an application, according to an agency statement.
Moretown is wrestling with a collective $9 million in damage from 2023 and 2024 — almost five times its $1.9 million annual budget. This winter, the town had received about $750,000 from FEMA. Since then, it has reaped another $650,000.
“We’re in a waiting game,” Moretown Town Clerk Cherilyn Brown said.
Small town leaders blame much of the delay on a lack of enough staff to complete the paperwork required for reimbursements. Moretown, like many neighboring communities, doesn’t have a municipal manager or administrator. Instead, Brown juggles the jobs of town clerk, treasurer and tax collector.
Moretown has secured a $3 million loan for a year, but its bank recently expressed reluctance to extend any more money unless the municipality can promise that FEMA will pay.
“When Tropical Storm Irene hit, I contacted the bank, said, ‘I need $1 million and I need it now,’ and it was instantly there,” said Tammy Legacy, the town clerk in nearby Roxbury. “This time, not so much.”
Roxbury, whose 678 residents support an annual budget just under $1 million, has signed a $2.5 million contract to replace two bridges.
“The only issue is getting a line of credit,” Legacy said. “Now banks need a guarantee the town will receive funding from FEMA. The difficulty is getting that guarantee. I’m not blaming anyone. We’re all in a tough boat. But one way or the other, we have to find the money.”
‘Dotting every i and crossing every t’
Although the 2023 and 2024 storms began on July 10, they ended with different outcomes. The 2023 rains caused more significant damage to state government facilities, according to Farnham, while the 2024 precipitation hit municipalities hardest.
Geographically, many southern Vermont towns battered in 2023 were spared in 2024, while many northern communities were hammered both years. But all continue to swim in paperwork.
In southern Vermont, Cavendish reported $2 million in road damage in 2023 but didn’t receive the first of its FEMA reimbursements until the end of 2024. Two years later, it’s still seeking the remaining $500,000.
“People say, ‘Aren’t you glad the flood’s over?’ but it’s not over in our office,” Cavendish Town Clerk Diane McNamara said. “It has been a budget challenge.”
In central Vermont, Waterbury has wrapped up most of its $430,000 in federal and state reimbursement requests for 2023 but has yet to close out $625,000 in claims for 2024. The application process has required the town to document every single expense, employee time card and piece of equipment used.
“You have to make sure you’re dotting every i and crossing every t,” Waterbury Municipal Manager Tom Leitz said.
Leitz estimated he and his staff have invested up to $50,000 in administrative time on such paperwork, which itself can be reimbursed — with more paperwork.
In northern Vermont, Barnet reported $3 million in 2024 damage but has yet to receive any federal compensation.
“We’re still in the paperwork churn,” said Benjamin Heisholt, Barnet’s town clerk and treasurer. “It’s been a slow bureaucratic process just because it’s a slow bureaucratic process. For a small town like us, the biggest challenge is we don’t have a lot of bandwidth personnel-wise.”
To mark this week’s flood anniversaries, U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., is touring the state to spotlight the need for continued federal help.
“FEMA does lifesaving and important work after a disaster, but we need to find a way to fix the agency so it works better to help communities recover in the weeks, months, and years after a disaster,” Welch said in a statement. “Vermont saw it firsthand: There’s too much red tape, and the long-term recovery process is inefficient.”
Welch is introducing a bill — the Disaster Assistance Improvement and Decentralization (AID) Act — to streamline and strengthen federal recovery efforts. The proposal is drawing support from local and state officials.
“After facing devastating floods over the last two summers, Vermonters have seen firsthand the value of federal support and assistance from FEMA workers,” Gov. Phil Scott said in a statement. “However, we’ve also experienced gaps between response and recovery, and we need to make changes that better support responders on the ground and those trying to rebuild.”
Back in the Northeast Kingdom, Holland Town Clerk Diane Judd recalled how stormwater flooded her community’s one paved road for days in 2023, only to return and close it for weeks in 2024.
Judd, president of the Vermont Municipal Clerks’ and Treasurers’ Association, knows she isn’t alone in worrying about funding and the forecast.
“I’m just really hoping there isn’t a third year of rain,” she said.
