Pounding Rain Chews Apart Vermont Roads and Busts Culverts

The National Weather Service said nearly 3 inches of rain fell on parts of central Vermont

Several central Vermont communities are hard at work on road repairs following damaging rainfall Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.

Roads and culverts in Duxbury, Moretown, and Fayston took the biggest hit.

"It was fast and furious," said Rick White of Moretown, who saw a torrent of water blast apart his driveway after water rushing down a hillside overwhelmed a clogged culvert.

Still, White said he is grateful that he and his wife were not injured, and their home and small barn avoided the damage their lawn and driveway suffered. "Things could be worse," he said.

The unpaved edge of Stevens Brook Road in Duxbury fell away to rushing water, leaving Jerry Haskins stuck at home for a while.

"I've owned this 18 years and never seen this happen here before," Haskins told necn.

Two to three inches of rain fell in the area in just a few hours, according to the National Weather Service.

Adam Magee, the highway foreman for the town of Duxbury, said even more rain may have fallen on isolated spots in his community.

"The pipes just couldn't take that much water at once," Magee said. "It just overwhelmed the pipes and over the road it went."

In the early hours of Wednesday, Magee said residents on part of Dowsville Road were isolated when a chunk of the road washed out. He said a crew got right to work clearing debris and rebuilding the road to make it passable again.

Magee estimated he has two or more months of culvert repairs and road rebuilds ahead of him, and has meetings planned with the Vermont Agency of Transportation and the Duxbury Selectboard to start working on a strategy.

"It was just an ungodly amount of water," Magee said of the rainfall Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

Another indication of just how much water fell was visible in the Winooski River. It was brown Wednesday from all the silt that was churned up. It was also running much higher than it has been during this summer of drought.

Contact Us