Seeking shelter: Vermonters displaced by floods find housing solutions through family and friends

More than 300 Vermonters were at least temporarily displaced by last month’s flooding, according to preliminary estimates by the state. But many of them never availed themselves of emergency shelters.

So where did they go? Anecdotal reports collected by VTDigger indicate that many crashed with friends and family, stayed in hotels or simply started over. Some have returned home, while others face a long road to rebuild.

“It’s very hard to track,” Dan Batsie, deputy commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public Safety, said at a press conference last week in Berlin. “We just don’t know the total number. We certainly hear about them, and we are managing some of them, but at the same time, more often than not we just don’t cross the radar with those.”

VTDigger will continue to cover the effects of the catastrophic summer flooding on our homes, businesses and lives. If you can help support these reporting efforts, please donate now.

Perhaps the best estimate of displaced Vermonters comes from the state’s 211 system, which has collected reports from those affected by the flooding. As of July 31, the system had received 314 reports of people requiring shelter as a result of damage caused by the storm that started July 9. But each report could pertain to multiple members of a household — and could represent temporary or permanent displacement.

In the initial response to flooding, the Red Cross opened two emergency shelters around the state and served 191 people, the relief organization said in a press release last week. Other spaces in schools and town halls were made available by municipalities around the state.

Now, three weeks out from the most severe flooding, needs have evolved. A Red Cross spokesperson, Jennifer Costa, said that only one shelter remains open, at the Barre Auditorium. The number of overnight guests on Aug. 1 was down to five, she said.

That leaves many Vermonters who were at least temporarily displaced from their homes who found shelter elsewhere. According to a database of Federal Emergency Management Agency applications, so far 208 people have received rental assistance, which FEMA provides to people “displaced from his or her primary residence,” according to a FEMA policy guide.

These are the stories of some Vermonters displaced by the floods.

Joe Grabon was fortunate. He didn’t lose any personal property when the basement of his Jeffersonville apartment building filled with water on July 10 and 11. The nearby Lamoille River rose all the way up to the bottom of his first-floor bedroom window and filled the basement to its ceiling, but the apartment itself was untouched.

Grabon remained in his apartment until July 12, three days after the rain started. The trouble came when members of the fire department arrived to pump out the basement. They said the water had been contaminated with heating oil and was considered a hazardous waste spill. The building wasn’t safe to live in, they said.

Grabon and the other two residents of the apartment building had to leave. Before he could even realize that he needed housing, his employer, Vermont Oxford Network, paid to put him up in a hotel in Stowe. In the “whirlwind,” he never reported anything to the state, he said.

“I never, ever would have imagined the feeling of trauma that comes from just being displaced,” Grabon said in an interview last week. “I was a zombie for the first few days just trying to process but also just trying to live my life.”

In the small hotel room, Grabon had to continue to work, take care of his two cats and keep up with the latest news on his apartment building.

Grabon had lived in his Jeffersonville apartment for five years and in the immediate neighborhood even longer. Being knocked out of his routine took a toll on his mental health, he said, despite the generosity of his employer. He cried in public. Meanwhile, in the days after the flooding, meteorologists forecast additional rain and he continued to worry about his belongings.

Eventually, the hazardous waste cleaning crew finished pumping the basement of Grabon’s building. It was safe, but still without power. He moved back anyway, using an extension cord from a neighbor to keep essentials such as phones and computers running.

“I didn’t have to return when I did,” Grabon said. “But for the sake of my own mental wellbeing, I really felt like I had to get home.”

Despite losing a basement full of belongings and being forced from her house, Daniela Wonson still finds ways to be positive. She considers herself fortunate that her chickens made it through the flood unharmed, she said.

Like Grabon, the basement of Wonson’s home was filled with a dangerous mixture of water and heating oil.

When Ludlow flooded on July 10, Wonson and her husband were actually away from their home, which they had purchased in September 2022. They tried to go home later that night but couldn’t even get into town. The next day they tried again. They parked away from the house and walked through the woods and across running water to get to the home, which was still surrounded by flood waters from the nearby Williams River.

Wonson shared photos of the flood’s aftermath with VTDigger. Two of their cars were flooded and damaged. One car sat against a wall of uprooted trees and looked as if it had been in a collision, its windshield smashed and the front end dented. The basement of the house was filled with muck and appliances were toppled over. An oil tank was turned onto its side.

It was clear to Wonson that they couldn’t remain there. They left and stayed that first night in a hotel, then moved to a relative’s house in Keene, New Hampshire, for several days. Eventually, they managed to find a small cabin to rent in Ludlow so that Wonson could be closer to her job as a nurse practitioner in Springfield.

Wonson and her husband have been getting rental assistance from FEMA, but they’re not sure when they can move back into the house. The oil and water in the basement are gone, but no utilities are working yet. It’s still a challenge to get to the house. The road, while passable, is still in rough shape, she said.

Managing the cleanup can feel like a second job, Wonson said. She’s still going to work while returning to the house and trying to find contractors.

But one silver lining is that offers of help were immediate. Colleagues volunteered places to stay and vehicles to use, the town of Ludlow brought supplies and a family member gave them shelter. Wonson said that throughout the recovery process she’s encountered kindness.

“So that’s made the whole ordeal a little bit better,” she said.

Before the floods hit Barre City, Brittany Raper and her boyfriend, Dan Normandeau, had been planning to move out of their apartment on Third Street in Barre.

“Definitely not like this,” she said.

In the days leading up to the July storm, neighbors said the last time the area flooded, their street was barely touched. The neighbors predicted “it won’t be that bad,” Raper recalled in an interview.

Those neighbors turned out to be wrong. Raper and Normandeau evacuated the night of July 10. They slept in Normandeau’s car on higher ground in a graveyard parking lot. The following day, they returned and parked as close as they could, but the water was up to knee level inside their apartment. Normandeau found a kayak nearby and used that to help get all their pets out safely.

Inside the apartment, anything that wasn’t wet smelled like mud or gasoline, Raper said. It was clear that their apartment was a loss — and much of the couple’s belongings along with it.

Luckily a friend had an empty room where they could stay. But their pets — one dog and two cats — had to stay elsewhere, and are currently in the care of an emergency pet shelter at the ice rink in Barre. The couple drives up to visit their pets twice a day.

While Raper had a few days off from her job at National Life Group, she returned to work after that and said all the upheaval had been “hectic.” She described a day last week when she returned to the flooded apartment to look for their dog crate, but it was ruined. She was supposed to return to work after the visit but found herself getting emotional. She took a personal day.

The couple has been looking for a new apartment so that they can simply start over with whatever they have left — but they worry they’ll end up in an equally vulnerable location. One apartment they viewed appeared to be in a flood zone.

“I don’t know if I want to live anywhere near there,” she said. “Because we just lost pretty much all of our stuff.”

The Weston home of Mark Weigand and Ali Ulrich is now stripped to its studs and unoccupied.

Weigand said he doesn’t know how long it will have to stay in that state, since the work to rebuild will be extensive. In the meantime, the couple and their two dogs will have to find another place to live.

VTDigger first spoke with Weigand and Ulrich from their Weston home on July 11. They sat on their porch while residents in nearby buildings were still taking stock of the damage. Weigand finished a conference call with his employer, Okemo Mountain Resort, which was trying to help the couple find a place to stay, but it was difficult to find something suitable for their two dogs.

The first floor of the old farmhouse had been underwater. The couple gave a tour of the damage and pointed out the line of dirt to mark the height of the water. Their vehicles were totaled, as well.

They gathered up their pets and what belongings they could and temporarily moved in with a friend who lived nearby in Weston.

Three weeks later, the couple remains with their friend, trying to sort through the insurance situation for their ruined home. In an interview, Weigand said he appreciates that where they are staying is only about three minutes away from his damaged home because most days include making frequent trips to the house to meet with FEMA representatives, insurance adjusters, contractors, surveyors, structural engineers and others.

Since their vehicles were ruined, they are now borrowing a car from a family member, as well as renting another so they can both get to work. Soon they will be moving up to a vacation house in Grafton that is in Ulrich’s family. Weigand said he appreciates the generosity of the friends in Weston that they’ve been staying with, but the couple needs space for their dogs and some privacy.

Their Weston house has now been gutted, thanks in large part to a crew of volunteers who showed up and cleared out the house over two days. Weigand said the basement keeps getting wet every time it rains, and he worries the house might have structural problems.

FEMA can’t help much, Weigand said, because the couple actually had flood insurance. But the insurance process will be a long one and with the amount of damage, Weigand worries about how much time it will take to rebuild. He knows a contractor who was scheduling about a year out before the floods.

“Now he’s like, ‘I can’t even tell you maybe two-and-a-half to three years before I could even take on a project of this magnitude,’” Weigand said.

Keep up with the latest headlines in Vermont. Sign up to receive our free morning newsletter delivered Monday through Saturday to your inbox.

Δ

About us

Request a correction

Submit a tip

VTDigger's Burlington reporter. More by Patrick Crowley