GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Fickle? Nah. You'd think nothing had happened: There's some high pressure aloft that's helping to dry things out a bit—and to bring us a mostly sunny day after the fog lifts, though with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms all day. Temps get into the upper 80s today, but will fall nicely into the low 60s overnight. Breezes from the southwest today.Despair, groove, and hope.
For the second time in a dozen years, the Woodstock Farmers Market and the White Cottage fell prey to a rambunctious Ottauquechee River on Monday. Brooke Beaird sends along this footage.
Meanwhile, in Norwich, Rye Keller happened on this not-a-care-in-the-world woodcock strutting in the rain. Sadly, she didn't have "Uptown Funk" playing in the background.
And at 5:30 am yesterday, this rainbow appeared in Quechee, over the all-too-aptly-named Lakeland Golf Course. "My Dad used to say, 'After something bad happens, something good will happen,'" writes Lisa Lacasse, whose drone captured the moment. "Perhaps he sent the rainbow from heaven to remind all us Vermonters just that: We will prevail!"
The Upper Valley starts to reckon with the damage. While there was good news for some residents and businesses yesterday—Thetford evacuees along Route 132 got to return home and some roads around the region reopened—plenty of people are looking at a long recovery ahead. In Chelsea, Route 107 remained closed all day. In Quechee, Simon Pearce's restaurant and store may reopen in a few weeks, CEO Jay Benson tells the Valley News, but “the glass blowing and hydro-electric operation will be a several-months effort.” Many roads around the region remain closed, especially steep gravel roads, though Lebanon had to close Spencer Street yesterday afternoon. The VN's Patrick Adrian, Alex Hanson and Liz Sauchelli round it all up, talking to people about how things went and where they stand now.Some stores in West Leb remain dry thanks to volunteer effort. With the Connecticut rising Monday night, reports Frances Mize in the VN, A.C. Lawn Mowing, which takes care of the Target plaza, put out a call for volunteers to help get flood gates up. As you may remember, the plazas saw extensive flooding during Tropical Storm Irene. Some 30 people responded, putting up gating around windows and entrances at Target, JoAnn Fabric, and other stores. Mize details the efforts.The roads and the rivers.
A lot of roadways remain closed out there. Here's New England 511.
And while river levels are dropping, things are still well above normal. The level behind the Union Village Dam stands at nearly 96 feet, and at the N. Hartland Dam at 122 feet.
"Breathtaking scale" of flooding in Montpelier, Barre. "In Barre, where more than seven inches of rain fell, residents paddled in kayaks on Main Street, steering around debris and vehicles that the swollen waters had lifted off the pavement," writes Derek Brouwer in Seven Days. The downtowns of both cities were closed into yesterday afternoon, while swift water rescue teams deployed to help residents who'd been trapped in their buildings. The big concern, though, was the Wrightsville Dam, where the water level yesterday reached just a foot below the top of the dam—any spill over the top would bring more water into the city. Officials last night announced they don't expect a breach. Here's a VTDigger drone flight over the city yesterday.
The Winooski crested in Montpelier yesterday morning, then in Essex Junction yesterday afternoon, reports
VTDigger
's Paul Heintz. Levels on the Lamoille, Missisquoi, White, West and Wells rivers, and Otter Creek, have all dropped as well. Rainfall totals around the state were striking: 9.2 inches in Calais, 9.05 in Plymouth, 8.06 in Randolph.
Flooding takes livestock in Chester, covers Johnson's sole grocery store almost to the ceiling, closes stretch of I-89 overnight leaving motorists sleeping in cars.
Seven Days
' staff fanned out to towns around the state, capturing scenes as residents struggled to cope or treated a bad hand with characteristic humor. "I ain't swimming to work," one man shouted from his porch, surrounded by water in Johnson.
As VT turns toward recovery... One prime way to get a sense of what's going on around the state is a new Facebook group, VT Flooding 2023 Response and Recovery Mutual Aid. It was started Monday night by Wendy Rice, a former FEMA staffer who helped with recovery efforts after Tropical Storm Irene (here's Seven Days' Alison Novak with more background). Rice sees it as a hub for sharing resources, information, and pleas for help, and it has quickly filled up with all of those. Moderators are sorting posts into needs & requests, offers, news & resources, and the like.SPONSORED: Good Neighbor Health Clinics seek dynamic medical clinic manager! This role will provide excellent patient care, host clinics, assure continuity of care, educate patients/staff, support volunteers, and lead. The manager upholds and promotes the success of Good Neighbor by adhering to all professional standards, policies, procedures, and government requirements. Valid driver’s license and vehicle in good working order required (two locations), as well as clinical licensure in both states (NH/VT APRN/PA). For details on benefits, hit the burgundy link. Sponsored by Good Neighbor.Meanwhile, recovery resources are beginning to show up.
Wendy Rice, the creator of that FB group above, has also created a Google Doc to crowdsource information on everything from official sources of information to shelter resources to FEMA info to resources for businesses trying to recover.
The State of Vermont has created a page for people to volunteer. "Registering through this link gives us all the information we may need to put you and your skills to use for Vermont. If we need you and your skills, we will be in touch," they write.
And the VT Community Foundation yesterday announced the creation of the VT Flood Response and Recovery Fund 2023, which is designed to coordinate giving aimed at helping communities recover.
Note that it's early still; all of this will evolve over the next few days.
Carly Berlin, a Report for America reporter for
VTDigger
and Vermont Public, is up with "What to know about returning home after a flood." Wear rubber boots and gloves if you have to walk around in floodwater, throw away food that's come in contact with water and disinfect surfaces, get your well water tested before you use it, document any damage before you start cleaning up, how to deal with mold, and more.
SPONSORED: JAZZ AT THE JUNCTION at Northern Stage tonight! Grab a drink and enjoy an evening of jazz under the stars at Northern Stage, Wednesday, July 12 at 7pm. We open with a performance by the Upper Valley Jazz All Stars, talented area high school musicians, led by Ian Gollub. Then, we celebrate an album release by the electrifying En Diablada Quintet (Natalia Bernal, Jason Ennis, Michael Zsoldos, Itaiguara Brandao, and Mauricio Zotterelli). ONE NIGHT ONLY! Sponsored by Northern Stage.After shoveling out friends' basements following Irene, Dartmouth PhD student spent this storm collecting river sediment. As a high schooler back then, Jordan Fields tells Bill Platt in Dartmouth News, “I just remember thinking where’s all this coming from, where is it going, and how are we going to deal with a climate where things like this are happening more often?” Now he's studying exactly those questions, and spent Monday "on a wild race across Vermont with a plastic water bottle on a stick" collecting water and sediment samples, Platt writes. He and colleagues have been looking at how the response to Irene has in fact "increased destruction, flow rates, and erosion."So how does climate change create historic storms like this? In part, Vermont's got a topography that's suited to it, state climatologist Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux tells VT Public's Abagael Giles: With a chain of mountains running north-south, if things align right "it allows storm systems to just sort of sit in place and rain themselves out." A warmer climate also means more moisture in the air, she says, and affects the course of the jet stream. "We had practically every way that you could have rainfall getting generated, all taking place and sort of sitting over us."Enfield Shaker Museum closes a circle, will buy LaSalette Shrine. The Catholic religious order originally bought the land for the shrine from the Shakers in 1927; now, reports Liz Sauchelli in the VN, it's selling it back—at least, to the museum. The two sides came to an agreement yesterday for La Salettes' 28 acres and buildings, and the museum is launching a $3 million capital campaign to fund its purchase, which is due to close in September. “We need to raise the money as quickly as we can ... but we don’t necessarily have to raise the full $3 million by the closing,” Carolyn Smith, the museum's board president and acting director, tells Sauchelli.Hunter Rieseberg steps down as Newport NH town manager. The move became official Monday night, writes Patrick O'Grady in the VN, when the selectboard voted 5-0 to accept his resignation. Rieseberg, who spent nearly two decades as Hartford's town manager, had been in the post since 2016. O'Grady notes several recent controversies, including disagreements with the school district and a suit by the developer of a 42-unit workforce housing over the town's water and sewer fees. Said one selectboard member, the board accepted the resignation "with regret." The finance director will serve as interim.Feds announce $1 million payment by West Leb in-home care provider for back pay, damages. You may remember John Lippman's much-noted story in the VN last December about allegations against the owner of Your Comfort Zone that she had denied employees wages for overtime. Yesterday, Lippman reports, the US Labor Department announced that it had "recovered $950,000 in back wages and liquidated damages and $50,000 in punitive damages" from the company, finding that owner Rosalind Godfrey had failed to pay overtime to employees who'd worked over 40 hours in a week."Think of it like a dunce cap, but for a car." That, at least, is one way to view the anti-robotaxi activities of a group calling itself Safe Street Rebel, which has taken to plopping traffic cones on the hoods of self-driving Cruise and Waymo taxis that operate in San Francisco—and advising fed-up passersby to do the same. "All you need is a cone and an empty AV," they say. “You just created a unicorn and temporary traffic calming.” The move, Rob Stumpf writes in The Drive, disables the vehicles, and offers an easy protest; they've been criticized for snarling traffic, rear-ending buses, and ignoring police officers’ commands.Need a break from water? Here's some fire. But really beautiful fire, at least from a distance. On Monday afternoon, as we were getting pelted with rain, a new fissure opened in an area of Iceland about 20 miles from the capital, Reykjavik, known as the Fagradalsfjall volcano. Isak Finnbogason, a 30-year-old drone pilot, caught the flames and lava flow Monday evening. That's at the burgundy link. He's also been doing livestreams, which you might catch here. (Thanks, NNM!)The Wednesday Vordle. If you're new to Daybreak, this is the Upper Valley version of Wordle, with a five-letter word chosen from an item in the previous day's Daybreak.
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At 7 this evening, the Oak Hill Music Festival opens its three-performance chamber music run with "Four Seasons"—a program that not only includes Vivaldi, but a striking range of composers inspired by the changing face of the year, including Ástor Piazzolla, Lili Boulanger, George Gershwin, Samuel Barber, and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. The festival's nine musicians come together from all over the country and from careers as accomplished soloists and orchestra members (you can check out their bios here). At the First Congregational Church of Lebanon.
Also at 7, the Center at Eastman is hosting the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center for a presentation on NH's seven different species of turtle (sure, you know about painteds and snappers, but what about musk turtles, or Blanding's turtles?) What they look like, what they eat, where they live...
And also at 7, the Enfield Shaker Museum continues its Stone Mill Concert series with Gary Hubbard & the Dinosaurs. It'll be rain or shine, outside the Stone Mill if the weather holds, with drinks and snacks available to buy during the concert. (Note: Don't let the URL fool you—the concert was originally scheduled with Brooks Hubbard, but he's otherwise engaged this evening, so his dad stepped in.)
And the reason Brooks Hubbard is otherwise engaged is that at 7:30 this evening, he's opening at the Lebanon Opera House for up-and-coming indie singer-songwriter Hans Williams, who's joining the stream of Upper Valley-bred talent gaining national attention—with a sold-out show at the venerable New Orleans club Tipitina’s—as he and his band debut their tour tonight.
Also at 7:30, the New London Barn Playhouse moves on to its new production of Fully Committed, Becky Mode's comedy about the daftness of high-end food culture. It follows a struggling actor who takes on a job as a reservationist at a busy Manhattan restaurant, definitely breaking a sweat as he juggles the demands of celebrities, socialites, chefs, and everyone else insisting on his undivided attention. Runs through Sunday.
And to start us off today...
The English pop-soul singer Olivia Dean is just 24, but after several years of EPs she's got enough heft in her home country to have performed at Glastonbury last month, and has her first album just hitting its stride. She's "a creamy-toned, jazz-tinged singer and a heartsore but resilient lyricist," veteran
NYT
rock critic Jon Pareles wrote last month, and both traits are on fine display in
See you tomorrow.
The Hiking Close to Home Archives. A list of hikes around the Upper Valley, some easy, some more difficult, compiled by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. It grows every week.
The Enthusiasms Archives. A list of book recommendations by Daybreak's rotating crew of local booksellers, writers, and librarians who think you should read. this. book. now!
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
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