Helping Out after the Floods

Here are some opportunities for helping Vermont, collected by the Seven Days blog Blurt (If you know of others, please make a comment with the information):

DONATIONS

• Text FOODNOW to 52000 to donate $10 to Vermont Foodbank. The Foodbank will turn each donation into $60 for families in need.
• You can donate to the United Way's Vermont Disaster Relief Fund online, or buy sending a donation to your local United Way. Just make sure your donation is marked for the "Vermont Disaster Relief Fund".
• You can also donate to the American Red Cross of Vermont and the New Hampshire Valley. The Red Cross set up shelters immediately after Irene hit for flooded-out families to stay in.
• The VT Irene Flood Relief Fund is raising money to help people and communities affected by flooding. 100% of all donations will be distributed to businesses and families. The fund is being administered by Todd K. Bailey.
• Vermont Baseball Tours has set up the 8/28 Fund to raise money. Donations of $20 or more get you a cool t-shirt.
• The MRV Community Fund has been reestablished to help Mad River Valley farmers who saw devastating crop losses due to the flooding.
• Independent Vermont Clothing is selling a special "I'm With VT" t-shirt. All profits from sales of the shirt will go to relief efforts.
• Across the lake, upstate New York got hit hard by Irene, too. Donations are being coordinated on the Irene Flood Drive Facebook page.
• Burr and Burton Academy has started a fund to help relief efforts in the Manchester area.
• The Preservation Trust of Vermont is taking donations to help rebuilding and cleanup efforts for the historic buildings and bridges damaged by Irene. Make a donation on their site and be sure to note "Hurricane Relief" in the Comments section.
• The Intervale Center has started a fund to help the farmers at Burlington's Intervale who lost their crops to flooding. To make a contribution, donate to the Intervale and designate your donation to the "Intervale Center Farmers Recovery Fund." Or mail a check payable to Intervale Center Farmers Recovery Fund to the Intervale Center, 180 Intervale Road, Burlington, VT 05401.
• NOFA Vermont is also accepting donations for their Farmers Emergency Fund to help aid the state's hard-hit farms.
• The Deerfield Valley Rotary Club is taking donations to help businesses in Wilmington rebuild. Wilmington was one of the hardest-hit towns, and FEMA funds won't cover much of the damage to private businesses.
• Buy an "I Am Vermont Strong" t-shirt and all proceeds will go to relief efforts.
• City Market in Burlington will donate 1% of sales from Saturday, September 3 through Friday, September 16 to the Intervale Farmers' Recovery Fund.
• The Waterbury Congregational Church has set up the Waterbury Good Neighbor Fund, to help residents who need immediate financial assistance.
• The Stratton Foundation has set up a relief fund to help the towns of Londonderry, Jamaica, Stratton, Weston, and Winhall.

VOLUNTEERING

• VTResponse.com is working to connect volunteers ready to help with those that need assistance. The site includes a frequently-updated blog and a forum. If you're looking to help clean up and rebuild, or if you're in need of assistance, visit their site.
• The Red Cross is in desperate need of blood donations. Stop by their donation center at 32 North Prospect Street in Burlington, or the Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital Blood Donation Center at 125 Mascoma Street in Lebanon, NH.
• Montpelier Alive is coordinating volunteer efforts in that city through their Facebook page.
• Volunteer and cleanup efforts are also being coordinated on Twitter via the #VTresponse hashtag.
• The Vermont Flooding 2011 page on Facebook is functioning as a community bulletin board of sorts.
• Vermont Helping Hands is also coordinating relief efforts via Facebook.
• Upper Valley Haven is operating with considerably fewer volunteers due to road closings. They're looking for volunteers who are able to travel there.
• The state is setting up a call center in Burlington to deal with Irene recovery efforts. If you're in the Burlington area and you can man the phones for a few hours, email governorvt [at] state.vt.us or call 802-828-3333.

Floods

Vermont has taken a beating. The heavy rains from tropical storm Irene overloaded rivers and streams all across the state. Anyone reading this from within Vermont already knows the details, or is perhaps living the details. We’ve lost at least three people to the water. Eleven towns are essentially cut off from the world by washed out roads. We’ve lost a few bridges, including one covered bridge built in 1870, swept away like a handful of sticks. Roads are closed all over the state and a number of downtowns are wrecked. Twenty thousand homes and businesses are still without power.

It’s going to be days or even weeks before all the electrical lines get repaired. Some line crews were stranded by the flooding and had to stay with the families they were reconnecting. Some roads aren’t damaged as much as they are just missing. People are using the old cliché, “You can’t get there from here,” with a new tone of voice. The fresh pavement is still visible from the repairs to the damage from the floods in May.

Vermont is set up for this kind of disaster. I’ve always said that around here you can find your way back to town by always turning downhill. Our forebears located town centers down in the river valleys where there was flat land and water power. Many roads in our steep terrain parallel streams and rivers.

As the state rebuilds, we should plan for more of this. The climate models scientists use to analyze the progress of climate change indicate that the northeastern U.S. will see warmer and wetter weather. They predict that the Atlantic Ocean will produce more and larger hurricanes.

Part of our preparation should be the recognition that so-called 500 year floods will show up more often than every 500 years. This means redefining flood zones and building codes. We need to redesign our infrastructure for a new relationship with flowing water. In some places this means building things stronger. In other places it means building vital structures elsewhere. In an absurd development, Vermont’s emergency management center had to be moved out of Waterbury because of flooding. Siting the center in an area susceptible to flooding seems to have been a slight oversight.

The hard part will be, in some cases, accepting that nature is stronger than we are and yielding. Some parts of Vermont may not be viable for human habitation in the future. If a piece of land is going to be neck deep in rushing water every couple of years, then it makes no sense to keep rebuilding. This yielding will also manifest itself in new patterns of agriculture. Wetter springs can mean later planting or changing crops.

Your Minor Heretic is growing a microscopic crop of cold-hardy rice this year. I have just two 4’x8’ paddies, but a wheat farmer in Ferrisburg is hoping to produce 4,000 pounds on a perennially soggy and formerly useless field. A friend of mine who grows organic produce is building more greenhouses, both to control water inputs and to extend his growing season year round. These are small beginnings, but they point in a direction.

Out in the Atlantic, at latitude 12 degrees north, longitude 33 degrees west, Tropical Depression 12 just became Hurricane Katia. The computer models show it heading just north of Haiti and Cuba and becoming a Category 3 storm by Sunday afternoon. It is still far too early to accurately predict the path, but most of the ensemble models show Katia hooking northwards and sweeping up the east coast. We can hope that Katia stays well off the coast, but we need to be ready for even more rain, next week and in years to come.