Hojun Choi
MONTPELIER — Since the record-breaking rainfall that put most of downtown Montpelier under four feet of water almost exactly three years ago, the city has embraced the term “resilience” as its rallying call to bolster local flood mitigation and preparedness.
While recognizing the need for improvement, river experts, residents, and leaders of organizations working to strengthen the capital city’s response to flooding stressed that new solutions need to respect the history and natural behavior of rivers to avoid repeating some of the human-made mistakes of the past.
In times of crisis, people tend to have “kneejerk reactions,” said Kassia Randzio, executive director of the Vermont River Conservancy.
“It’s not just in the United States, or Montpelier,” Randzio said. “When something is wrong, people want a solution. They say, ‘Hey, fix this for me now — fast.’”
That was the case following the Great Vermont Flood of 1927, the deadliest natural disaster in the state’s history, Randzio said. Then-Lt. Gov. S. Hollister Jackson was among the 84 people who died in the floods, according to a national weather service report.
Areas along the Winooski River basin “most likely” took the brunt of the damage, and the catastrophic event led to a period of building flood-retention reservoirs and dams — such as those in Wrightsville and Waterbury, the report states.
“A lot of those dams are the kneejerk reaction,” Randzio said.
Emergency preparedness is an important aspect of resilience, Randzio said. Equally crucial, she added, is an environmentally conscious approach to protecting river corridors and flood damage mitigation.
“As a society, we’ve changed so much how water flows across the land,” Randzio said. “There is a lot of work to be done to actually achieve flood resilience.”
History of Living on the River
Multiple river conservationists in the state told The Bridge that more than half of the state’s rivers had been dredged or straightened for farming and development throughout Vermont’s history.
Norwich-based historian Alan Berolzheimer has been leading seminars around Vermont about the history of life along the state’s rivers, which spans back to the days of the indigenous tribes native to the area.
Flooding is an inseparable part of that history, but Berolzheimer said planning for future resilience should also consider the ways humans have altered the state’s rivers.
“In addressing current needs, we have to be aware of what we can learn from history, both in terms of mistakes and solutions,” Berolzheimer said.
In the early days of European colonization, settlers farmed along river beds for fertile soil, making dramatic changes to existing lands.
Later, as the sheep industry boomed in Vermont, people cleared out forests in the hills for farms — again impacting how water flows throughout the region. The issue was further exacerbated in the mid-1800s as the lumber industry peaked in the state.
As the country went through industrialization, railroads fueled and shaped development around large cities and towns, including Montpelier.
The different eras of settlement, technology, and industry ebbed and flowed, but the changes to the land remained, affecting future generations of Vermonters.
Embedded within that history are solutions that had a positive impact on the environment, such as large reforestation projects in the early-1900s, Berolzheimer said.
Even as recently as 30 years ago, however, solutions then deemed helpful — such as armoring riverbanks with large stones or rocks — are being reconsidered today, he added.
The state’s more modern responses to river management and flood mitigation, notably following the 2023 and 2024 flooding in central Vermont, seems to have marked a shift in perspective on the idea of resilience, Berolzheimer said.
“I think resiliency is a guidepost for thinking about how we need to live with nature, and I think more and more people have a recognition of that and the importance of planning for that,” he added.
State-led Solutions
Ned Swanberg, flood hazard mapping coordinator for the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, said the state response to flooding and river management has evolved over the years since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built dams in the area in the 1930s.
The Emergency Relief and Assistance Fund, an incentive program for Vermont municipalities, is an example of how the state has promoted local efforts at flood resiliency, Swanberg said.
Cities and towns that meet a certain number of criteria, such as creating local hazard mitigation plans and participating in the National Flood Insurance Program, qualify for financial assistance from the state in the case of federally declared disasters.
In response to the 2023 floods, Vermont passed Act 121, also known as the Flood Safety Act of 2024, Swanberg said, a major priority of which is to protect river corridors around the state.
Part of that protection comes in the form of education and outreach, such as the state’s Flood Ready website, which includes flood maps, historical data, and other resources to help Vermonters better understand their rivers and surrounding land, Swanberg said.
“It’s about trying to protect the area where we can expect erosion to happen, and appropriate erosion that allows for the stream to move from side-to-side over time within its natural meander form to manage its water, sediment, energy, and debris without causing damage,” Swanberg said.
Regardless of solutions at the state or federal level, Swanberg said, the community’s buy-in and leadership is critical to flood mitigation and river corridor protection.
“Communities really become the drivers of what can be done. The state and the federal government can only do so much,” he said.
Perspective Shift at the Local Level
For Montpelier, the 2023 flood was a “stark reminder” of the city’s location at the confluence of multiple rivers, Randzio said.
“It’s easy to forget that,” Randzio said. “The rivers literally go under roads and under buildings.”
As challenging and painful as the experience was, Randzio said the severe flooding in recent years has spurred people in Montpelier and the towns and villages upstream to seek out solutions that protect people, but also the rivers they love.
“I think there’s this real recognition that natural solutions are an important component of long term solutions for flood resilience,” Randzio said.
Randzio has seen some of that perspective change in central Vermont in the form of grassroots efforts from residents, Randzio said.
River Meetings at the North Branch Cafe
Twice a month, a group of about a dozen central Vermont residents has been meeting at North Branch Cafe to learn more about what they can do to better understand and respect the river.
At the group’s meeting in late June, born as a direct response to the 2023 flood, Jon Copans, executive director of the Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier, shared an experience from a public forum his organization held earlier that month.
Copans described how one of the attendees of the public forum pushed back on the wording of one of the priorities the foundation identified — a focus on “leveraging” the city’s rivers.
In a recording of the forum, available online, the attendee questions the transactional nature of the phrasing, and encourages the foundation to “consider the river for the river’s sake,” adding that the community should also focus on protecting the ecology and the quality of water in the river.
Copans said the sentiment seemed to resonate with many forum attendees, and described it as a “powerful moment.”
“It helps me reflect on how I frame up and communicate issues, and how we as a community think about our relationship with the rivers,” Copans said.
Lauren Parker, owner of North Branch Cafe, said she welcomes the informal, biweekly meetings at her business.
The cafe was relatively safe from the flood damage of 2023, Parker said, adding that it was among the few businesses that could remain open in the weeks immediately following the flood.
Parker said she wants the North Branch Cafe to continue fostering conversations about flood resiliency and river conservation. She designated a part of the cafe’s space as the “River Room,” a place where patrons can look at the North Branch through the windows, and also learn more about rivers from the collection of educational literature on the topic.
“The flood, even though it was horrible and shocking, it also showed me what the Montpelier community actually is and how much they love their town.” Parker said.
