HARDWICK – Earlier this month, I received a national award for floodplain management.
The recognition is meaningful, of course. But honestly, what has stayed with me most is how the nomination happened in the first place.
Five women working in Vermont state government coordinated the nomination effort, gathered support and moved it through the process with support from their agencies and supervisors. Three work for the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation. Two work for Vermont Emergency Management. My supervisor, Town Manager Opie Upson, also supported the nomination.
That detail feels important because the award is not really about one person.
The reality is that flood recovery has always depended on people working together.
Local officials, state agencies, engineers, volunteers, conservation organizations and residents have all been trying to figure out how to navigate challenges that seem to get more complicated every year and disasters that seem to arrive more frequently than they once did.
That collaboration is not always simple.
After all, local and state governments often approach the same problem from different perspectives.
We wrestle with regulations, permits, timelines, oversight, changing requirements and the simple reality that local priorities do not always align neatly with state priorities.
We argue about river corridors, floodplains, housing, infrastructure and who gets to make decisions about communities that are deeply personal to the people living in them.
Some of that tension is healthy. It is part of the job.
The last several years have also reminded me of one advantage Vermont still has.
The people working in our state agencies are close enough to communities to know what is happening in them. Many live in Vermont communities themselves, including some that face the same flooding, infrastructure and rural challenges as the towns they work with.
In Vermont, it is not unusual for the same state staff member to help review a permit, answer flood recovery questions, attend a public meeting, walk a damaged site and then follow up afterward to check on how the town is doing.
That matters, especially for small towns.
In a larger state, communities like Hardwick could easily disappear into bureaucracy. Instead, we often find ourselves working directly with people who know our rivers, our roads, our neighborhoods and the reality of trying to manage disasters with limited local capacity.
That does not mean local and state governments always agree. Sometimes we should not. Municipal officials see immediate impacts very closely while state agencies are tasked with balancing broader legal, environmental and financial responsibilities.
At a moment when federal programs feel increasingly unstable and disaster recovery systems seem to shift every few months, I find myself increasingly appreciative of the role Vermont’s state agencies continue to play in supporting small towns.
That does not mean everything works perfectly. Anyone involved in this work knows that.
But the people doing the work generally care about the communities they serve.
And government is only one part of the story.
Hardwick’s recovery has depended on neighbors, volunteers, community organizations, local businesses, engineers, contractors and everyone else who stepped forward when they were needed.
Flood recovery has taught many of us that resilience is not just physical infrastructure.
It is also the relationships that exist before the next disaster happens.
It is knowing who to call.
It is trust built over years of difficult conversations.
It is people willing to answer an email at night because they know a town is struggling with something complicated.
Watersheds do not care about political boundaries or organizational charts. Flood recovery pulls together local officials, state agencies, federal programs, engineers, volunteers, nonprofits and residents whether we are prepared for it or not.
In flood recovery, people often focus on the visible infrastructure: bridges, culverts, berms, retaining walls and damaged buildings.
But after several years of this work, I am increasingly convinced that relationships are infrastructure too.
The challenges facing Vermont’s communities are not getting simpler, and we will need those relationships in the years ahead.
And in Vermont, despite all of our disagreements, people still show up for each other. I do not think we should take that for granted.
Kristen Leahy is the zoning and floodplain administrator and the resilience and adaptation coordinator for the Town of Hardwick.
