Johnson Village, which sits where the Gihon and Lamoille rivers meet, saw some of the worst damage in the state during last summer’s flooding.
On Thursday — the anniversary of that deluge — residents who are still waiting for buyouts watched the river rise towards their homes for the third time in a year.
Vermont Public’s Abagael Giles spoke with Jerry Williams and Jeane Wolfe that day in their living room, as they watched the Gihon rise right outside their porch.
This interview was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Jeane Wolfe: My name is Jeane Wolfe. We are on Railroad Street behind the library, to the left, which is right near the river. And right now it's raining really hard. And the water has not crested yet. It's still coming up. So we're still in the thick of it.
So last year, it rained really hard for, I think, quite a few days. And the water came up to about 4 feet on the first floor.
And we lost everything on the first floor…
Jerry Williams: Yeah, we basically had to replace everything: cars — both cars — appliances, furniture. We're still kind of working on stuff.
We applied for a buyout. But we don't know what the status of that is yet.
We just don't want to repeat last year, and it looks like we're kind of … I don't know.
It's … it's been a long year, just putting everything back together.
But it seems like we might be here another winter if FEMA doesn't decide on the buyout.
Last year, we stayed at my son's place for — wow, what was it? A month and a half — two months? While we did all the clean up. All the Sheetrock was taken off and insulation and we let it dry out for a couple of weeks.
[We’ve just been] piecing it together. We didn't want to put too much into it. I mean, we just stapled some rugs down. If we're going to do a buyout, I mean, there's not much sense in doing a complete renovation or restoration, so we’re trying to do everything on the cheap. Well, not cheap, I mean — it's not cheap.
We lost this whole kitchen. So all the appliances are new and then we had to put in some temporary countertop and we lost all the bottom cabinets.
So yeah, it's been a long, long haul. It took us two months to get new vehicles.
It's flood fatigue. I just get tired of looking at this [gestures to the river] … I can't, you know?
I don't know what kind of mitigation you can actually do to slow down Mother Nature. But is there some kind of alternative to what state we're in right now?
It seems like the only thing you can do is move away from the river. I haven't seen any other alternatives.
And it's a tough choice.
Abagael Giles: I have to say this is a really beautiful spot, right by the river.
Jerry Williams: Yeah, it is. We won’t find another spot like it. It’s very private, right in the middle of town.
But you go through a thing like last year, you don't want to repeat that. So I don't know. I guess there's no magic bullet for this.
Editor's Note: Jerry and Jeane’s home ended up staying dry on Thursday – just barely.
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