(NECN: Lauren Collins - Washington, N.H.) - Washington, N.H. Selectman Ken Eastman left his house to head to the emergency operations center Tuesday night and quickly discovered his neighborhood had been cut off. He'd have to cross what was left of a washed out road by foot.
"What we were walking across were those concrete block," said Eastman pointing to a temporary bridge. "It was probably a one and a half to two foot spread between them with water rushing in between."
Hundreds of residents in the tiny town were reconnected by the morning commute, thanks to a DPW all-nighter.
"They started working on it at about one in the morning," said Washington Police Chief Steven Marshall," and by quarter past seven it was passable."
Molly Miller and her fiancé were awake all night, too, because she got stuck on her way home from work. Matthew Pratt went to rescue her.
"We went through some pretty bad stuff to get to her," said Pratt." Then, once we did get to her, we decided to come up from that end."
Only a few hundred feet from home, their pick up truck got stuck in a sudden river of water that washed out South Woods Road. Three hours later, they were rescued by the Alstead Fire Department.
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"It was scary. Definitely scary. Not something I want to do again," said Miller.
New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan and state officials touted storm damage Wednesday. She's declared a state of emergency to help leverage federal funds for torn up communities, "and make sure they have the kind of assistance that they need from the state in the short term."
Nowhere is that help needed more than in Alstead. The town, devastated 8 years ago, experienced flash flooding last week that caused $300,000 in damage. All of the repairs were undone with a few inches of rain Tuesday night.
"There's only 2,000 people in this town. It's going to get expensive," said Alstead Emergency Management Director Clarence Meyer.
