On assignment for VTDigger.org, I went to Stockbridge, Vt. last week to see the White River Valley Campground, which was almost completely destroyed when Tropical Storm Irene hit Vermont late August, 2011. Here’s that story.
Rebecca Smith can’t stand the sound of rushing water.
On Tuesday it will be a year since floodwaters from Tropical Storm Irene swept away much of the campground she ran with her husband, Drew, just off Route 107 in Gaysville, a village in the town of Stockbridge.
Rebecca nearly drowned as she escaped the high water that engulfed their 22-acre property within a matter of minutes.
This week as she stood in the barren floodplain of the White River among rocks – most of them far too large to have come from the campground fire pits the floodwaters washed away – she describes how she heard the boulders knocking against each other as the river, now quietly running through a shallow bed of sand and stone, raged on that Sunday night a year ago.
Taylor Dobbs 