Vermont Battles Flood in Irene’s Aftermath
(Excerpts from an Associated Press article, August 29, 2011)
The full measure of Hurricane Irene’s fury came into focus Monday [August 29, 2011] as the death toll passed 44, while towns in the northern U.S. region of New England battled epic floods and millions were still without electricity. From North Carolina to Maine, communities cleaned up and took stock of the uneven and hard-to-predict costs of a storm that spared the nation’s biggest city a nightmare scenario, only to deliver a historic wallop to towns well inland … landlocked Vermont contended with what its governor called the worst flooding in a century. Streams also raged out of control in rural, upstate New York. Irene dumped up to 11 inches of rain on Vermont and more than 13 inches in parts of New York.
The death toll for 11 eastern U.S. states had stood at 21 as of Sunday night, then rose sharply to at least 38 as bodies were pulled from floodwaters and people were struck by falling trees or electrocuted by downed power lines … nearly 5 million homes and businesses in a dozen states were still without electricity, and utilities warned it might be a week or more before some people got their power back.
Many people were surprised by the destruction that Hurricane Irene wrought in communities far inland. But National Weather Service records show that 59 percent of the deaths attributed to hurricanes since the 1970s have been from freshwater flooding.
As for why the flooding was so bad this time, Shaun Tanner, a meteorologist with the forecasting service Weather Underground, noted that August had been unusually wet, and Irene’s sheer size meant huge amounts of rain were dumped over a very large area.
Vermont Flood Photos (opens in new window)