and continuing 8/29

To catch you up -

Irene, 8-28

The next morning - 8/29

So, we all hopped into our car, Mom decided to come along and see what was up. The FD had suggested seeking out the fast squad at the town offices, and so that's where we headed. We drove around the first corner, and the road was covered in small stones and water. The second corner stood a bridge, with the front part washed away so the people on the other side couldn't get in or out, and oddly, in the bridge was a tree, stuck, between the guardrail and the side of the bridge. Right side up, root side down, being suspended by the bridge (it’s still there today, and it took me a few days thought to even figure out how it got there, if you care, I’ll tell you the running theory).

Around yet another corner, another washout, part of the road missing, and another corner, the dirt road that came down on the left, completely eroded away, leaving stones and dirt and muck in the road. Then for about a half mile, all was normal looking.

Then we turned another corner. The lower house had sand up to the windows. The lower garage was the same. The upper house, it was wedged under the bridge it was built beside, on the other side of the river, the owners standing on the debris, looking. My thought was they were looking for something, anything, to save of their old life. ***1 Side note, see below ***

Across the road from them a childhood friends home, their driveway completely gone, eroded away.

Go around the next corner, and the farm, the vegetable farm, looked just gross. You could tell it was covered in water, yet the trailer across the street, beside the river, virtually untouched. A tiny bit up the road the road was gone, same thing as by our home, but on the other side. Up to the yellow line, just gone. It was not as long as by our house, but still very scary and hard to see. You look over to the house next to the vegetable farm, and you can see it’s still under water to a point, and you can see that the house was totally submersed by where the water line left marks. They were using boats to get to their house at that point.

Holding my injured up, and putting pressure on my hurt thumb I knew, yet again, we had made it out on the easy end. When we came up just beyond that house you could see another road washed out, a huge pile of dirt and debris in the way, and then we came onto Long Trail Brewery. It was covered in muck and silt. The whole area had flooded.

The corners Post Office looked unharmed as we went past, and from there to the town hall, all looked deceptively normal with the exception of a couple small wash out and a couple spots closer to the river.

As we came up to the town office, we were stopped in traffic. There was a semi-truck parked to the right, just sitting there waiting. A local official was going from car to car, telling everyone, the road is closed, there is no passage to Woodstock. We told him I had a slight medical issue, and were hoping to get to Woodstock Health Center, but they told us that we needed to see the fast squad instead. We parked and I went into the town office. I found a fast squad member, and showed her my hand and thumb. Without even stepping closer, she asked me what happened, and I told her that I had been bit by my cat the night before during the evacuation. With a hesitation she told me I needed a hospital and antibiotics, and to tell the guys out side to let me through.

Outside they were still saying the road was closed. They tried to call an ambulance through, but they refused to come to us, and so finally Jeff said he would try to drive through. After a few minutes of back and forth, we were allowed to travel to Woodstock by our own vehicle, to meet an ambulance on the other side of the damage.

We passed through, and slowly made our way into Woodstock. The small farm on the left out of town was flooded, some of it’s animals missing, the inn just past it, also flooded. There was a white car, in the wrong lane, pressed against the guardrail, covered in muck just around the corner, and just past that was a small section of road that was washed out from side to side. We braced ourselves, having heard that it’s still solid underneath, but not sure of how deep it was. Jeff pressed through it, and we made it. All the way up the road on the right was flooded property, and the left was the still swollen river. We made it to the next corner, and the last bit of damage.

The road was crumpled. It looked like a giant had picked it up, crumpled it like a newspaper and put it back down. To drive through it you could not go straight, but you had to weave your way through, hearing the occasional scratch under the car as a piece of blacktop scraped it’s way along.

Just past that, you could see the opening in the guardrails for the iron bridge, but that was gone, it was about 50 feet down the river, crumpled, twisted mass of metal and wood. The same giant had apparently felt like the bridge was deserving of it’s anger.

The rest of the way to the ambulance was quiet, again, deceptive of the destruction we had left behind. When we finally made it to the covered bridge where the ambulance waited, they looked at my hands, and decided that if we were willing to drive the rest of the way in our own car, that they didn’t want to waste the ambulance on me. I completely understood. They said “If you made it through that, you’ll have no issues getting the rest of the way.” Then they told us we wouldn’t be allowed back, but at that point, it didn’t matter, I had to go, but we were determined that if we got out, we would get back in.

Cat scratch fever and the point of no return later on...

***1 Side note, after talking with them later on, they watched their house wash away. They now have a small building already rebuilt, and are well on the way to ‘recovery’. I told them later that until their house is rebuilt, each weekend we were going to leave them a 6 pack of the beer of their choice.***