Hurricane Beryl’s remnants cause damaging flooding across Vermont
Roads were flooded, washed out or covered with debris and stranded residents were rescued by emergency services.
The remnants of Hurricane Beryl caused damaging flooding in Vermont on Thursday, a year after catastrophic flooding inundated parts of the state.
Roads were flooded, washed out or covered with debris around Vermont as heavy rain moved through the state from Wednesday.
Rescues were reported and some communities were under evacuation orders.
In Plainfield, residents of a six-unit apartment building had only 15 minutes to evacuate before the entire structure was swept away by floodwaters that also took out at least seven bridges and left many roads impassable and people stranded, said the town’s emergency management director Michael Billingsley. One car was swept away, but the occupant escaped, he said.
Across the state, emergency workers assessed the damage and Mr Billingsley said it could take several days to know the full extent. Areas of central Vermont, which was hit hard by last July’s flooding, suffered some of the heaviest damage. Roads and homes were also reportedly flooded in the city of Barre.
There were no immediate reports of any deaths in Vermont.
Beryl, which landed in Texas on Monday as a Category 1 hurricane, was a post-tropical cyclone that brought tornadoes and flooding from the Great Lakes to northern New England after leaving millions in the Houston area without power.
Parts of northern New York and New England, including Vermont, remained under flood watches or warnings early Thursday. Thunderstorms were forecast for much of the East Coast until Friday, the National Weather Service said.
In Vermont, the weather service had said the storm “will not be like last July’s catastrophic flooding but will still pose real dangers where flash flooding occurs”.
In an update on Wednesday, Vermont Emergency Management said there had been an unspecified number of evacuations and road closures due to flooding, primarily in the central part of the state.
“Vermonters and visitors are encouraged to seek higher ground should floodwaters approach,” the statement said.
Rescue teams and the National Guard were at the ready, the agency said.
At least one tornado in upstate New York, the weather service reported. It damaged trees and property in communities south of Buffalo. There were no reports of injuries.
A tornado in southwestern Indiana’s Posey County collapsed much of a warehouse and ripped off roofs, derailed train cars, and damaged mobile homes. No injuries were reported.
Beryl has been blamed for at least seven U.S. deaths — one in Louisiana and six in Texas — and at least 11 in the Caribbean. More than 1.3 million homes and businesses in Texas still lacked electricity early Thursday, down from a peak of over 2.7 million on Monday, according to PowerOutage.us.
