ST. JOHNSBURY, Vt. (AP) — Heavy rain early Tuesday washed out roads and led to about two dozen rescues in northern Vermont, nearly three weeks after many farmers and residents in the state were hit by flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl.
Some areas got 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 centimeters) of rain starting late Monday and saw flash flooding, the National Weather Service in Burlington said. Flash flood warnings were in effect through Tuesday morning.
In Lyndonville, a town about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Montpelier, the state capital, Deryck Colburn said he awoke before daybreak to a neighbor pounding on his door. They live along a brook.
“I went down the road to her house, and there was no road. There was just a river,” he said.
Colburn said he heard the same surge of rushing water he’d heard in flooding earlier in July, along with the unnerving sound of tumbling boulders carried by the water.
Most of the rain fell in that area and in St. Johnsbury, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) south. Police issued a “shelter in place” advisory Tuesday morning for St. Johnsbury, a town of about 6,000 people.
“We sent swift water rescue teams to the area overnight, and those teams conducted approximately two dozen rescues,” Mark Bosma, a spokesperson for the Vermont Emergency Management agency, said in an email.
Bosma said Lyndon, about a mile from Lyndonville, and St. Johnsbury sustained damage, but that the agency was waiting for more information to come in from those communities and others. Local news stations showed images of broken culverts and separated roads in St. Johnsbury.
There was no immediate word of injuries.
Colburn said some homes in Lyndonville that were damaged earlier in July were “washed away” during this storm. He said people were rescued. The emergency management agency did not have further information.
“The last storm was a wake-up call,” he said. “I thought I would never see anything like that again. I don’t think that holds a candle to this. Not even close,” he said.
“There’s a lot of broken hearts.”
More rain was possible Tuesday, the emergency agency said.
“Be ready for more heavy rain and potential flash flooding today. The areas impacted by last night’s storm are in the path of highest risk,” it posted online.
Sections of two major roads near St. Johnsbury were closed to due flooding, the state transportation agency posted.
The state experienced major flooding earlier in July from the tail end of Hurricane Beryl. The flooding destroyed roads and bridges and inundated farms. It came exactly a year after a previous bout of severe flooding hit Vermont and several other states.
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