It’s a year today since Tropical Storm Irene dumped 11.23 inches of rain on Vermont. Given our topography, there was nowhere else for all that water to go than downhill to fill up the creeks, brooks, ditches and then the rivers of our state.

Behind our house, the White River rose 30 feet. At its crest—12:15 a.m. on Monday, August 29—the waters had isolated our house, covering the road on both sides of us.

This standing wave was right in the middle of our road at the height of the flood.

While we did not get water in the house (a fact that still amazes us), it devastated our land, particularly the slope behind and to the side of our house. In West Hartford, we lost our store (now reopened), our library (still closed), our post office (now torn down), and our park (being renovated).

Jay’s boots were sucked off his feet when he walked on our land three days after Irene deposited 30 inches of silt. We found them three weeks later.

Our 14 acres of riverside land was covered by a thick blanket of silt, a fine, powdery concoction that’s half clay, half sand. At the most upstream end of our land, we have a two-acre debris pile of stripped trees, and assorted human debris. Our island was flattened, and a second debris pile covers its center.

In other places, the land was stripped bare.

The house opposite the end of our bridge lost its whole front wall.

It was so disorienting, nothing was the same.

Our RV was turned on its side, dragged fifty feet, and stripped by the flood waters.

We lost nine cords of wood. Many people, especially folks on the north side of the river, lost their homes when rampaging streams that were blocked by the rising waters of the White River flowed behind their homes, gouging huge holes out of the land.
People fled, sometimes on foot, struggling for safety.

Just a small part of the human and botanical debris left by Irene.

The next morning, we couldn’t believe our eyes.

Parts of other people’s lives ended up on our land.

As news filtered in, Vermonters realized that we had to pull together in order to put ourselves together.

The flotsam of other people’s lives

So began our yearlong odyssey of pulling ourselves upright. And we all did this with the kindness of our friends, folks we didn’t know but got to know, people who work for the town of Hartford, the state of Vermont, and the federal government.

So many people came to help with the cleanup, including students from Twinfields School in Plainfield, Vermont

Everyone here will tell you that the outpouring of volunteer effort, and the kindness and compassion of those around us carried us through the bleakest time. The hugs which kept us together, the phone calls, the cleanup, help with moving out, help with moving in, shelter from the storm, the amazing compassion of the folks at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church who made sure everyone was fed, the volunteers who ran the community food program in our community church when so many of us had no kitchens.
The list of folks who helped just us numbers somewhere around 300 people when you total everyone up who was involved.

As it dried, the heavy silt cracked, leaving space for new growth. After a long, bleak winter, the earth started coming back to life.

The winter was bleak. No snow to cover the aching landscape. At the worst of times, I despaired of ever getting what we needed to stay on our land and in our home.
But then spring came with its eternal promise.

David Hazen Island, our island in the middle of the White River, as it looked in May.

David Hazen Island in July 2012. There’s still a lot of debris but there’s a lot of green as well.

Our island, so destroyed, struggled to reclaim some of its beauty. And our spirits rose. We stood up. Time to get back to work.

In May, some wonderful friends helped us plant 125 new trees on our land. The deep silt will, eventually, smother the existing trees so these saplings will give us new growth to replace the old. At the end of August, most of the trees had survived.

We decided we needed three things for our recovery: trees to replace those we lost; a new building to replace the office/studio that I lost and the shop that Jay lost; and rock on the damaged slope behind our house.
Friends helped us plant trees in May.

In June, an incredible group of volunteers, the Dream Builders of Maryland, showed up to help us raise the new building that will house my lost office/studio and Jay’s shop.

This incredible group of volunteers from Maryland, the Dream Builders, showed up in June with hammers at the ready to help us start our new building.

After the Dream Builders left, construction of the CLB (cute little building) was taken over by Wood Development (Mike Wood), our neighbor and new friend across the river. We hope to be using the building by early October.

That building is nearly done. We hope to occupy it by early October.

Our biggest problem was stabilizing the slope behind and to the side of our home. The flood waters ripped trees from this bank, and right after the storm, cracks showed up in the earth. This was the most difficult problem to solve.

And then on August 20, after clearing numerous paperwork hurdles and, with the help of the wonderful guys at the Natural Resource Conservation Service, Irene recovery specialist Sam Harvey, and the Vermont Disaster Relief Fund, we welcomed Brent Cadwell and Frank Harris of Earthworks Unlimited here to put rock on our slope.

On August 20, 2012, after ten months of negotiating, moving paperwork, getting estimates, and coordinating the efforts of the Natural Resource Conservation Service, the Vermont Disaster Relief Fund, the town of Hartford, and Earthworks Unlimited, the excavators finally arrived with the big rock we needed. This is Frank Harris of Earthworks doing what he does best in the seat of his excavator.

Here’s Frank in his excavator. The man’s an artist in this huge machine.

For a week, our lives were accompanied by the crash of rock rolling into place behind our home.

Space is very tight here so the rock deliveries had to be made by a big dump truck backing into the tight space between our house and garage to let the stone fall down the slope to where Frank and Brent built this HUGE stone wall.

But in the end, we have saved the slope behind our home—and our home.

Here’s what that slope looks like this morning.

And once again, the White River glistens and gurgles in its banks. So hard to believe it’s been a year.

And the river just keeps on rolling.
With gratitude in our hearts, we want to thank everyone everywhere who helped us get back on our feet. We could never have done this without all of you.