BELLOWS FALLS — Calling Vermonters “tough and gritty,” Governor Peter Shumlin told residents who are pulling the pieces of their lives together after Tropical Storm Irene last week that “We'll get through this together.”
There's enough tears and heartbreak to go around for 100 years,” Shumlin emphasized in his remarks at the Bellows Falls Opera House on Sept. 9.
“It is our spirit and sense of community, and reaching out to one another that will put Vermont back together again,” he said.
The Shumlin administration's new “flood recovery czar,” Neale Lunderville, told home and business owners to “get receipts for every penny you spend.”
Lunderville, the former secretary of administration and secretary of transportation under Jim Douglas, the state's previous governor, spoke of the various financial resources being made available to Vermonters to clean up and rebuild their homes and communities.
“The government wants to know where its money is going and how it's being spent,” Lunderville said.
“Even volunteer hours” should be kept track of, said state Rep. Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham. “Those count too.”
Municipalities and public services will qualify for federally funded match loans, at 75 percent federal and 25 percent split between local and state funding [12.5 percent each], Shumlin explained. “That's the most that we'll have to pay.”
“Our highways and roads are now in our brooks and streams,” Shumlin said. “If you need to extract them from the riverbeds, using common sense, that's what we will do.”
The governor said that the time period on allowing stream-bed reclamation of roadbeds would not “go on indefinitely.”
But, he told the audience, “We realize we are up against winter very soon, so we don't want to stand in your way.”
Shumlin spoke about town planning, saying, “We are experiencing more intense rain now than ever and we're seeing more washouts. It's more like rain Costa Rica would see.”
“We want to get beyond crisis management,” he said. “As we rebuild, we have to be smart and face climate change. We want to sustain a future [in Vermont].”
Town planners need to take recent weather change patterns into account, he said. “Where you are seeing roads and houses wash out now, you're not going to want to rebuild in those same places.”
Shumlin also reassured townspeople that he is doing everything he can to let the rest of the nation know that Vermont “is open for business.”
“I've been on Fox, CNN, and anyone who will have me, something I don't usually pursue, to get the message out,” he said. “There are plenty of communities that were not affected by Irene.”
He also saw the silver lining in having the state drenched by record-setting rainfall this year.
“Something many Vermonters know that others may not, sugar maples need a lot of water to glow and they're getting plenty of that,” he said as the audience laughed with him.
“If people want to support Vermonters in their struggle to rebuild, we're sending the message to come for foliage season,” Shumlin continued. “It's going to be a very colorful year. There may be some spots where they have to drive slowly because the roads are still dirt, but leaf-peepers do that, and that's perfect for them.”
Shumlin said the state is not spending any money on this campaign, “but we are using every free means of getting the message out, and you can help.”
“Tell all your friends to come now,” the governor urged.