WATER JUST SUBMERGED THE BOWLING ALLEY’

Five days before Irene struck, the Weather Service issued warnings about potential flooding, and Vermont governor Peter Shumlin declared a state of emergency long before a trace of storm clouds appeared over the state. For those living outside town, it wasn’t even immediately apparent that Irene was more than just a severe rainstorm. But as the rains continued, reports about what was happening downtown began to trickle in, and Irene’s breadth came into focus.

CAMILLE SWANSON Nurse at Family Medical Center

Around 9:00 or so my husband, Doug, had tried getting into town and couldn’t. It was already flooded. He came back and said, “Come with me, because you just won’t believe what’s happening.” We went over to a place by Stowe Hill, where it was high enough so you could see the flooding. You just couldn’t believe it. We watched the water just submerge the bowling alley.

Florence Crafts

It was a common thing that whenever we thought the river was going to get high, we’d take our cars up to the school. So that’s what we did. But then it came really fast. My son had come over, and he got the truck started. We wanted to get as much firewood as we could loaded into the truck, but we never had the chance. We had to leave.

Steve Butler

I remember looking out the window and laughing because there wasn’t even a puddle in the parking lot, not even in the lower-back section that’s always the first to pool up. I thought we’d dodged a bullet. So I took a shower and then headed outside. It was around 9:45. The lot was still dry. I walked 60 feet, and in those 15 seconds the lot filled up with three inches of water. It was so fast I thought a water main had broken. I didn’t think for a second it was a flood. Twenty-five minutes later the water was more than five feet high. My partner, Bev, and I had two dogs in the trailer where we lived behind the bowling alley. I went for the dogs, and we got them loaded into my truck.

At this point there was water filling the truck. When I opened the door, it just gushed out. But I got it started and drove to a nearby spot that’s higher ground. Then we all made it back to the North Star—Bev is short and was on her tiptoes—where I had an apartment rented out on the second level. I knocked on my tenant’s door and said, “Sorry, but we’re going to have to invade your space for a little bit.” That’s where I watched the rest of the storm.

HANNAH SWANSON

Was a sophomore at Twin Valley High School in Wilmington; now a junior at Binghamton University in New York

That river is far away, but water had filled up the field and crossed Route 100. Everything was just water. You could see it rising. Watching the bowling alley and seeing the deck get submerged, all the chairs and tables just floating around, it was crazy. I kept thinking about how we used to have dinner there all the time, and then suddenly there was nothing there.

‘OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!’

For years residents had looked in awe at the high-water mark on the police station that showed where the Deerfield River had risen during the ’38 hurricane, 65 inches above the sidewalk. At the height of Irene, however, the Deerfield managed to surpass that historic mark. The storm’s onslaught had come fast. The rain had started the night before. By 6:00 a.m., when fire chief Ken March arrived at the station, it was coming down at a steady pace. Not long after, early breakfast customers filed into Dot’s at 7:00 and looked out at the rising but still contained river. Uncertainty filled the place as diners wondered what exactly Irene would bring. By 10:00 water was pouring over the railings of the Main Street Bridge, bringing with it a fast current of propane tanks, dumpsters, and appliances. “It sounded like an angry freight train,” recalls March, who had begun receiving reports about a possible drowning a few miles north. Even those who had been prepared for flooding were caught off guard by Irene’s voracity. In one dramatic event, firemen bailed out of the station windows to evacuate the building.

JOE SZAREJKO

Wilmington police chief

I got to the firehouse that morning around 6:00 to watch the Weather Channel with Chief March. I checked the river height before going in; it was already rising at that point. Around 15 minutes later I went back out to check it, and the water had risen three feet in just that time. That’s when I knew we were in trouble, ’cause I’d never seen it come up that fast before.

SUSAN HAUGHWOUT

That night before the storm I couldn’t sleep. I was nervous. I tried to doze, but I had the Weather Channel on the whole time. I was pretty panicked. Finally at around 5:00 I got out of bed. I told my husband, “I have to go down to the office and start moving books so they won’t be damaged by floodwaters.” I stopped in at the fire department. I spoke to one of the men: “Do you think I ought to prepare for something worse than the ’38 flooding?” He looked at me and said, “Yes.”

PATTY REAGAN

We opened the restaurant at around 7:00 that morning, and people started showing up. One of them was Susan Haughwout. It was raining, and we were talking about the storm, but we had no idea it was going to be what it became. But as Susan was getting ready to leave—I’ll never forget this—she turned and looked at us and said, “I’m sorry for your loss.” I was like, “What? Shut up! What do you mean ‘our loss’?”

We were still high and dry at this point. But we soon sent everybody home.

Then we just started pulling pictures off the wall—the stuff we’d never be able to replace.

Monique Johnson

Lives just north of town; her husband, Brian, is with the fire department Brian got a call to come down to the station around 6:00. I didn’t realize how high the water was getting, because even though we live above the river, you can’t actually see it because of the trees. At around 7:00 he called me and said that the high school had been opened up as an emergency shelter, and [asked me if I could] go down there to help out. I still didn’t get it. I said, “Sure, let me just get some things together and take a shower.” And he cut me off: “No. Nobody’s taking any showers. You need to get down there.” So I started getting things together, like snacks and dry clothes for the guys at the department. An hour went by and I still hadn’t left. My husband called again: “Where are you?” When I started explaining, he said, “I don’t need dry clothes! I just need you to get to the high school right now.”

Lisa Sullivan

We’d gone to Dot’s to get something to eat, and my husband, Phil, saw the water starting to come over the bridge: “We’ve got to go to the store.” So for the next 45 minutes we were moving books from the bottom two feet onto tables and chairs, because we thought maybe a little water gets in here and that’s it.

But the water kept getting closer. It was rushing around the store, and Phil said, “I’m worried about the building. We need to open the doors to relieve the pressure.” As soon as we did, one of those large whiskey barrels that we’d put flowers in came rushing into the store. The water was knee-deep.

There was an intense propane smell in the air, because all these tanks were getting pulled off buildings and floating down the street. We were scared something might blow. We ran up the hill behind the store to a spot on Rayhill Road where a bunch of people, including the Reagans, had gathered to watch what was happening to the town.

Monique Johnson

As I was backing out of my garage to go to the high school, my neighbor drove by in a pickup and asked where I was going. When I told him, he shook his head: “Not in the car you’re not.” I climbed into his truck, and he brought me to the high school. It’s only a mileand-a-half ride, but the only thing I could say as I saw that water and devastation was “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

Ken March

Just before we evacuated the station, I looked out the window and saw the roof of the baseball dugout from the high-school field float right by. It wasn’t long after that I made the call to leave our station. Incident command became my pickup truck, with two radios and a cell phone.

BERT WURZBERGER

Was weeks away from opening a downtown aquarium store; his parents, Sue and Al Wurzberger, own the nearby 1836 Country Store and Norton House Quilting I got into the shop around 7:30 that morning. The night before, I’d moved stuff to the second floor just in case. The river wasn’t that high. Within an hour it was waist-deep in the parking lot, and I was scrambling to get the last few things I could to the upstairs. Then I ran up to the Country Store to call my parents. I’ve seen a lot of floods, and I could tell this one was going to be the worst we’d ever experienced. “This is going to be bad,” I said. “Worse than ’76. What do you want me to do?” “Turn off the electricity to the buildings and leave,” they said.

Susan Haughwout

Based on how high the water had been in ’38 and how high our building sits, I figured I needed to move anything in our vault that was shelved below my waist. I wasn’t sure we’d be able to move everything, so I had to calculate which materials were higher priority. The big land-record volumes—they weigh probably 20 pounds apiece and there are 300 of them—contained deeds, mortgages, and liens. Those were first. Then there were documents like old town-meeting records that might be a historical loss, but they weren’t accessed often.

I had a small team of helpers: Ann Manwaring, our state rep; Pat Johnson, the assistant town clerk; and her boyfriend, Larry Nutting. We stacked the land volumes onto office chairs, then wheeled them into the elevator to take to the second floor. It was relentless. I don’t know how many chairs we rolled up and down the building. At one point we couldn’t move the filing cabinets, so Larry, who’s really strong, just started ripping the drawers right out. They were absolutely full. I still don’t know how he did it.

Bert Wurzberger

I just started running up and down Main Street trying to warn people about what was about to happen. I felt like Paul Revere. By this point my building had already come off its foundation. There was this loud crunch, and then it just popped up like a cork. I made my way to the hotel, The Vermont House, which is where I saw Ann Coleman’s gallery building just pop up, slab and all, and float away. It all happened so slowly that I felt like I could have just grabbed it. That was my urge, to pull it back into place.

Ken March

After we’d closed the bridge, one of the selectmen wanted to cross it to get back to his house. I told him I couldn’t allow him. “I’m going,” he said. “No, you’re not,” I said. “Yes, I am,” he said. Now, he’s a bodybuilder, but I had to hold my ground. He said, “What about my cats?” I looked at him and told him, “They’ll take care of themselves. They know how to do that.” He finally turned around and left. He apologized later.

MARK DENAULT

Detective sergeant with the Wilmington Police Department

Some people underestimated the gravity of the situation. People wouldn’t leave a building when you told them to; then they’d be stranded on a roof. Others drove into the town center, right into the raging water. We had to rescue one lady, whose car had stopped in the water, with a backhoe. She climbed right from her car into the bucket. Another time we had a guy kayak right down Main Street. It was a raging river at that point, but for some reason he thought it would be fun.

KEN MARCH

Emotions were high. The adrenaline had kicked in. The guy who decided to kayak had been under water and by chance had popped back up. Happenstance was the only reason he was alive, ’cause by every right he should have been down in the reservoir with the rest of the debris. The police were hollering at him, and he was flipping out, and then I finally stepped in and said,