HARDWICK – I’ve heard more than one person say recently, “It hasn’t flooded for two years. Why are we still talking about flooding?”
It’s a fair question, depending on your perspective.
It probably does feel like we’re spending a lot of time talking about flooding right now.
We are.
In many ways, we’re trying to catch up on years of planning and preparation in a relatively short amount of time because the floods of recent years showed us where our vulnerabilities are.
That can make preparation seem expensive and time-consuming.
That doesn’t mean responding and recovering are easier or cheaper. Anyone who has lived through the last several years knows that recovery has been measured in years, not days.
For some people, the floods are in the past. For others, July 10 is approaching and they can feel it. They watch the weather a little more closely. They hear heavy rain and pay attention in a way they never did before. Some people have left. Others won’t leave town around this time of year, just in case.
The date still means something.
When we talk about floods in Vermont, we’ve usually remembered the year. We talk about 1927. We talk about 1973 and 2011.
But 2023 and 2024 are different.
Those floods happened on the same day.
Around here, people can simply say, “July 10,” and many residents know exactly what they’re talking about.
That’s because the impacts of flooding don’t end when the water goes down.
And they don’t stop at the property line either.
When Wolcott Street floods, it affects all of us in Hardwick: our pharmacy; the wastewater treatment facility; Tops grocery; Lamoille Valley Ford, our largest private employer and roads that connect us to work, school and family.
In a rural place like ours, we are connected in ways we don’t always think about until something happens.
The rivers are different, the neighborhoods are different, but communities across our region are asking many of the same questions.
How do we protect what matters?
How do we reduce risk?
How do we prepare for something we know will happen again, even if we don’t know when?
If our history tells us anything, it’s that flooding is part of living here.
We can’t control when the next flood comes, but we can decide how prepared we want to be.
Planning and adaptation work can sometimes feel slow. It can feel unnecessary when the sun is shining and the rivers are quiet.
Experience has shown we spend far more time, energy and money responding to floods than we do preparing for them.
Not because we expect the worst every year.
Hopefully, this year is quiet, but history reminds us why this work matters.
That’s why we keep talking about it.
That’s why we keep planning.
And that’s why the work continues, even when the rivers are quiet.
Kristen Leahy serves as the zoning and floodplain administrator and the resilience and adaptation coordinator for the Town of Hardwick.
