Hurricane Results in New Interstate Exit

My house is far enough up the hill that it had no damage and I didn't even realize the river was flooding until talking to neighbors who were walking by. There was a steady rain all night and all day but it wasn't the typical downpours I experienced in Costa Rica or Miami.

I walked down to the bridge with my kids and was floored to see how high the river had risen. Even during the spring floods it didn't come near the bottom of the bridge. As we watched the river rose higher and higher until it was lapping the bottom of the deck.

Trees came down and slammed into the decking, shaking the iron bridge as they smashed, ducked under and continued on down. We watched as the pavement on the approach to the other side of the bridge lifted up and was washed away. A tractor-trailer truck came floating down and smashed through the trees on the other side of the bridge. We watched a cow, many coolers, tubes for tubing down the river, a bureau and someone's deck float down.

The telephone pole snapped off and was dragged into the river but the cable never broke. About this time the power went out. We heard that the power company had turned off the power for safety. Later I heard that a couple of transformers upstream had blown up.

Then we noticed that the river was starting to go over the road just below us. The repair that the town had just paid for recently was washed away as well as most of the rest of that road and the only route to South Royalton was now cut off. It may be a year or more before the bridges are fixed and will cost millions of dollars.

It is now 5 days since Hurricane Irene flooded Vermont. Road crews have been working untiringly to get roads passable. Electric companies from Canada, and several states west of us have been working in massive convoys to get power restored all across the state. Finally, as I was headed out yesterday morning to help people who's houses were flooded clean out the river silt, the electricity came on. A neighbor came over and helped me figure out how to reset my pump so now I have water. I put my kids in charge of doing laundry and dishes while I headed out to check on neighbors and make my way through Exit 2 1/2.

Exit 2 1/2 is just a mile before Exit 3 and only allows access to the northbound lane. The people, who's farm and yard it crosses generously allowed this entrance to be made. Everyone from my section of town has been so grateful to them as well as unnamed officials from the state of Vermont for allowing this exit to be constructed. Common sense and Vermont ingenuity have come together to create a solution, creating access from one isolated area to the rest of the town.

The road crews have now filled in enough holes in another road through Bethel that we can now drive on that route to get to the town so I hear that the State Police are shutting down our Exit 2 1/2 or Hill Billy Highway, as some call it.

This new route takes about a half hour to drive what once was a 5 minute drive. The road is ok now but I fear it will be very difficult in the winter, though Exit 2 1/2 would probably be impossible. We will miss our Exit 2 1/2.

At a meeting of the Select Board last night I found out that the Royalton road crew will begin repairing the approach to the Royalton Bridge starting this morning and could be finished as early as Friday.

Once the bridge is repaired there will be no more need for Exit 2 1/2 but the common sense and Vermont Inginuety that it represents will live on. Tomorrow I will be at the Farmer's Market to help sell Exit 2 1/2 T-Shirts. We are hoping that sale of these shirts will help to Revive Royalton with proceeds to help victums of floods caused by Hurricane Irene.