BRATTLEBORO — The public is welcome to join author Craig Brandon on Wednesday, Aug. 22, at 7 p.m., in the Brooks Memorial Library's meeting room, for a photo show and talk about Tropical Storm Irene.
The storm caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, destroyed hundreds of homes, and ruined highways in Vermont, upstate New York, and western Massachusetts. A new book tells more than 300 stories from survivors and first responders.
It took three authors and a dozen photographers to tell those stories in Good Night Irene: Stories and Photos about the Tropical Storm that Devastated Vermont, the Catskills and the Berkshires, published by Surry Cottage Books of Keene, which previously published The Weight of the Ice: The Northeast Ice Storm of 2008.
Craig Brandon, the project editor and publisher of Surry Cottage Books, set out to tell the story as completely as possible with a goal of publishing the book soon after the storm. He hired freelance writers and photographers from each state who gathered photos and interviewed survivors.
“Typically it takes years for books about historical events to be published,” Brandon said. “My idea was to create a bridge between the daily news stories and the books that would be written about them later. Hiring multiple authors allowed us to do more than one town at a time and we think the result is the most comprehensive coverage of the storm anywhere.”
To avoid repetition, the book focuses on the towns with the most interesting stories to tell. In Brattleboro, the storm had the most impact on the arts community. In Prattsville, N.Y., the entire downtown area was destroyed, and in Rochester, Vt., the problem was isolation when all the bridges into town were lost in the flood. The book focuses on Schoharie, Prattsville, Windham, Blenheim, and Middleburgh in the Catskills, Williamstown, Greenfield, Shelburne Falls, and Charlemont in Massachusetts; and Brattleboro, Wilmington, Rochester, Woodstock, Waterbury, Quechee, and Pittsfield in Vermont.
This talk is free and open to the public.