Gina Tron
BARRE — Flood survivors from across Vermont urged local, state, and federal lawmakers to overhaul disaster preparedness and recovery during an emotional hearing at the Old Labor Hall on July 8, sharing firsthand accounts of their struggles as a result of the recent catastrophic floods.
The Extreme Weather People’s Hearing was organized by climate advocacy groups — including Climate Action Campaign, Vermont Climate and Health Alliance, and VPIRG — which called for legislation that would make fossil fuel companies pay for disaster damage caused by climate change.
“Disasters don’t end when the water recedes,” Corinne Cooper, one of the 16 people who testified to a panel of lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) and Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT). “They reshape lives for years. There needs to be funding, there needs to be action, and above all, there needs to be compassion.”
Cooper evacuated the Berlin Mobile Home Park, where she lived during the 2023 flood. The neighborhood is located about two miles away from another mobile home community, River Run Manor, which was devastated by the May 2011 flood.
“Everybody lost their homes in both the parks,” she said of the 2023 flooding. “That’s forty families total.”
The trauma of losing homes was only the beginning, Cooper noted, explaining that navigating FEMA proved difficult. She said FEMA delayed temporary housing plans at the Montpelier Country Club Road site for months.
“Then they pulled the plug on the project with Montpelier still receiving over $500,000,” she said. “And the park people struggled on.”
She said she made offers on houses without success while FEMA found her temporary housing.
“I was shocked to learn that in addition to paying $1,106 fair market value for the direct lease apartment FEMA found for me, they would be charging an additional $1,656 per month penalty because I hadn’t found permanent housing,” she said.
Julie Bond, executive director of Good Samaritan Haven, a nonprofit that runs several homeless shelters in central Vermont, testified that they are committed to building future shelters away from flood-prone areas, particularly after what happened in the 2023 flood.
“We sustained about $100,000 of property damage, including a transport van which was swept away with the flood waters as they were trying to evacuate various people,” she said, adding that in certain moments during the flood, she wasn’t sure she would make it out alive.
Bond said the shelter has spent hundreds of hours trying to access FEMA funds for damages, unsuccessfully. Instead, they received a community development disaster relief grant to relocate the Barre City shelter out of the floodway. Until that project happens, they count on a spray-painted ruler on a wall to know when and how fast the brook is rising so they can estimate how much time they have to evacuate safely.
Melissa Whitaker, who co-owned Positive Pie with her husband, struggled to receive adequate funding after both her Montpelier and Plainfield locations experienced flooding, so they took out loans, putting their house up as collateral. In the end, they couldn’t make it work. They sold their business and have since moved to Nashville, Tennessee.
Whitaker recently testified at a Climate Crisis Panel in New York City, which advocated for big oil and fossil fuel companies to help fund such cleanups.
“Why does this have to fall on citizens?” she asked. “Big oil is causing the pollution.”
Peter Youngbaer, former executive director of the People’s Health and Wellness Clinic, said flooding destroyed the clinic’s location in Barre’s north end in 2011. While initially told FEMA would cover 75% of recovery costs, the arrangement was later reversed, leaving FEMA to cover only 25%. As the current chair of the Plainfield selectboard, he said the estimated cost to repair damages from the more recent flooding there is $18 million, 10 times the town’s annual town budget.
He pointed out that Washington County has the distinction of having 22 federal disaster declarations, the highest rate and total of any county in the country.
“All American citizens deserve the protection and assistance that good science and good government can provide,” he said. “Help us.”
During the testimony of former legislator and Lt. Gov. David Gov. Zuckerman, he said those who can least afford to rebuild are those most affected.
“Those who can most afford to help us out of these situations are the ones who are asked to help us do it because working people can’t take any more,” he said. “We know that, and we all need these changes to happen.”
After the testimonies, several lawmakers on the panel spoke about how powerful the personal accounts were.
Photo by Elijah Kushan.
“It is so painful to hear about the egregious loss they suffered, anxiety about their family, their children, and to see that has been compounded by the FEMA process that made the trauma of the storm incidental,” Welch said, calling the FEMA process “Kafkaesque.” Earlier in the evening, he and Balint decried FEMA and the current federal administration, with Balint accusing them of sending funding to red states while neglecting those who voted blue.
State Sen. Anne Watson (D-Washington County) said the stories impacted her on an emotional level, inspiring her to focus on crafting future legislation based on the stories she heard over the evening.
“I think the best ideas for legislation come from the people who have lived experience,” she said.
Rep. Balint said in a Climate Action Campaign press release that the stories she heard were a powerful reminder that the stakes couldn’t be higher.
“I’ll bring those stories back to Washington as I fight to strengthen our efforts to tackle the climate crisis and protect our communities,” she said.
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