GRAFTON — People who survived Tropical Storm Irene have been turning their energies to neighbors and friends all over affected areas of Windham County.
In the aftermath of the Aug. 28 storm, access in and out of Grafton was available sooner due to the foresight and organization of Emergency Management Incident Commander Bill Kearns and a team he assembled three days before the storm was scheduled to hit Vermont.
Kearns said the volunteer fire and rescue department called “all hands on deck,” and had between 50 and 100 volunteers on duty to monitor the storm.
In one case, emergency personnel carried out a two-hour rescue of a woman early Monday morning who got caught in the rising water and escaped into a tree as her car washed away beneath her.
“We got state police, fire and rescue, town road crews, and the Selectboard together,” Kearns said.
A number of people in town credit the rapid response following the flooding to Kearns, who also had the foresight ahead of the storm to notify local contractors to repair the damage.
Kearns has lived in Grafton for five years. He is retired from Federal Emergency Management Agency, where he worked as an attorney.
His experience in towns such as Biloxi, Miss., following Hurricane Katrina informed his understanding of the need for preparedness and what actions would be necessary should the worst happen.
As a result, Grafton saved a lot of time following Irene.
“Grafton could become a model for towns in planning for these kinds of events,” said state Rep. Carolyn Partridge.
“The response was much quicker because of Kearns’ action,” said Grafton Fire and Rescue volunteer Chuck Dickison.
Others in town similarly offered their skills and their resources.
In the yard outside the fire and rescue building, a road grader and a pile of black plastic culverts could be seen. “All [10] contractors brought in their equipment — trucks, loaders, backhoes, graders, excavators — and parked them here,” Dickison said.
“If we’d had to wait until equipment could get here, we would have been in a lot of trouble,” said Alan Sands, one of several deputy incident commanders staffing the desks, and a former manager in the Vermont Department of Forests and Parks.
Due to Kearns’ organization and foresight, crews were on standby at 5 a.m. the day after the storm rebuilding roads. As a result, needed supplies got to Grafton “within days, instead of weeks.”
Dickison pointed to pallets full of water and Gatorade and blankets that had just arrived Saturday morning from FEMA, the Chester United Church of Christ, and the Red Cross. “It could have been a lot longer,” he said.
Dickison and the regular 15 fire department and 10 rescue volunteers from the station have put in 12-hour days since early last Monday morning.
He said there were “between 25 and 50 volunteers from Grafton and nearby communities” volunteering as well. Some of the regular fire and rescue volunteers went back to work Wednesday when access was opened, and other [volunteers] stepped in.
Road crews from JP Trucking and Excavating on Fisher Hill Road, off the Cambridgeport Road, said Saturday that they had been working since Aug. 29.
“I’ve been coming over every day this week,” said Sarah Newcomb, who teaches in Grafton. She was dropping off Gatorade, water, cookies, doughnuts, and coffee at the highway shed, which hangs over the Saxtons River, but whose garage has remained in continuous use.
“I just had to do something,” she said, as her two young children helped carry the boxes.
Inside the shed, maintenance personnel were too busy to talk as they struggled to remove and replace a huge tire from a bulldozer.
“We’ve been going steady,” one of the men said.
Sands said they started getting calls from people who wanted to help, and Kearns asked Jerry Stevens to organize the volunteers.
When rumors started flying and “damage control became necessary,” Kearns asked David Ross to step in as the information officer.
“We were getting calls from all over the world from people who had family members in Grafton asking if they were alive,” Sands said.
An outpouring of help
Standing at the intersection of Townshend Road and Route 121 on Saturday was Bill Toomey, who was volunteering as a flagger.
“I’ll be back again tomorrow,” said Toomey, the assistant innkeeper at the Inn at Grafton.
He said that Sunday and Monday night at the Inn, “we had every room filled with people fleeing the flood. We fed and housed them gratis. That’s what being part of community is.”
He said he has been putting in regular 12-hour days since Aug. 28.
Clare Martele, a cognitive behavioral therapist on Long Island, relieved Toomey as flagger at the intersection. She said that she found “the level of spirit” of people helping one another in Grafton something she has not seen anywhere before.
“I haven’t heard one negative word,” she said. “No one is complaining.”
Stevens said the Rushton farm south of the Village on Route 121 requested help with fencing and picking stones out of the field.
Maureen Parker lives in Grafton and teaches at Bellows Falls Union High School. She put out a call in the announcements for volunteers and arrived with three other teachers, a former student, a BFUHS senior, and her two young children to help with cleanup.
“I had to get out of my house. My place needs cleaning up, too, but it’s not as bad some others,” she said.
“Thank God they let me shower at the high school,” Parker said. “I just got the electricity back on last night. I hadn’t had a shower in two days.”
Each day, she left BFUHS with five-gallon jugs and big Gatorade coolers from the sports teams filled with water for neighbors and friends — “as much as we could carry.”
BFUHS senior Dominic Anderson said, “We were helping clean up fences, hauling wood off them.” Anderson said that he was satisfying community service requirements for school.
“But he likes to help too,” Parker said.
Another teacher, Diane Cecere, is a former Grafton resident. She described landing butt downwards in a manure pile.
“We were losing boots in the mud, falling and slipping, stepping into holes,” she said.
“How could we go to a [Labor Day] barbecue when help was needed here?” Cecere’s sister, Renee Vondele, asked.
Meals have been served at the Chapel since Monday as well, for volunteers, road crew, and residents, organized by Joan Lake from the United Church of Christ in Grafton. “Joan’s put tremendous effort into making that happen,” Stevens said.
Stevens said one day last week, inmates from a local prison worked with the Grafton road crew on Hinkley Hill Road putting in culverts.
“They want to come back again next week,” Stevens said.
South of the village on Townshend Road, caretaker Nelson King points to his trailer. It’s intact, but knocked off its foundations and being assessed for damage as he spoke.
“We got everyone out to safety in time,” he said.
King works as a caretaker for the Blundon property, which was inundated with fluvial deposits from the south fork of the Saxtons River. He said he was moved by all the equipment and people who had showed up to help with the cleanup the day after the storm.
Owner Bob Blundon arrived Friday night from his home on the Connecticut coast, which was without electricity “and full of sand.”
“I was out from 6 a.m. Monday for 12 hours each day with my chainsaw, clearing the roads” of fallen trees, he said.
“Having seen the damage [in Connecticut] from the storm, I wasn’t shocked,” said Blundon, who serves on the fire department in his hometown. “It’s just as bad, but different.”
His Grafton home was knocked off its footing, “but neighbors came by and set it back before I got here,” he said.
Daughter Meredith Blundon is on the emergency crew “back home” and had been out helping all week, too. Now, with sleeves rolled up and handing out brand-new work gloves to volunteers, she seemed calm.
“A lot has already been done by friends and neighbors and volunteers,” she said.
“We want to help,” said a young woman who walked up with her son. “Is there something we can do?” she asked Blundon.
Bob Blundon didn’t hesitate.
Giving them gloves, he sent them over to another part of the property, where people were cleaning up debris in the silt. “Thank you for coming,” he said, matter-of-factly.
Blundon said, “A lot of people have gathered here over generations. Their kids are here today to help.”
Having suffered damage in Connecticut and Grafton “without any insurance on either place,” is he discouraged?
“I’m a kind of a glass-half-full kind of guy,” he said with a smile, gesturing at the more than 30 people at work on his muddied property doing various clean-up jobs. “It feels pretty overfull right now.”
Long road ahead
Between the organizational skills of Kearns, support of various agencies and groups at local and state levels, and the continued efforts of neighbors helping neighbors, Grafton is making excellent progress on the road to recovery.
But Kearns warns that the hard work has only just begun.
“We were beat up and we are beat up,” Kearns said, “and we’re not anywhere near done. We’ve got a long way to go.”
He estimates the town will have to borrow, at a very rough preliminary estimate, around $5 million for repairs.
“We had to borrow $1.6 million in 1996 with the last flood,” Kearns said. “This is way worse.”
But, he said, “We’ve been through it before. We knew what to expect. And we know what it’s going to take to recover. We’ll get there.”