Colchester will receive more than a million dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay for construction on the causeway connecting the town and the islands.
The $1,153,409 grant from FEMA will pay for permanent fixes to the causeway after a flood created sinkholes, washed out gravel and damaged a bridge on May 4, 2018. This comes after temporary fixes by the town and state allowed cyclists and pedestrians to return to the path at the end of June.
Ben Rose, who heads up recovery and mitigation for Vermont Emergency Management, said nearly half of the new FEMA money will go toward mitigating the risk of future storm damage.
"In addition to repairing the embankments of the causeway, Colchester is going to be able to harden that with additional stone," Rose said.
Similar FEMA funds will go to the Vermont Electric Cooperative, which experienced outages in the same storm.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story stated more than half of the new FEMA money will go toward mitigating risk. The correct amount is slightly less than half.
