3 years later, Waterbury's on the mend

Three years ago, Waterbury lived up to its name. When Tropical Storm Irene pounded Vermont, the normally placid Winooski River swirled muddy water through homes and businesses on Main Street, through the State Office Complex, and through other parts of the community.

Life was turned upside down in a couple of hours for many of Waterbury’s 5,000 residents. The downtown took the worst of it, with 220 structures swamped in murky floodwaters. Residents scrambled to save belongings, pets, and themselves.

Nearly one-third of all the Vermont properties damaged or destroyed by Irene were in Waterbury.

Overnight, 1,500 state employees stopped coming to work in town, as the Waterbury State Office Complex was destroyed. Restaurants and retailers counted on those workers for business.

But then, the volunteers arrived. People poured in from around Vermont and from other states, and helped Waterbury regain its footing. They hauled 871 tons of waterlogged belongings from homes and businesses, clearing the way for repairs to start.

And, while the storm was a nightmare for Waterbury, three years later it’s safe to say that, in many ways, Irene was a catalyst for change.

A new look

Transformations are evident everywhere. New businesses such as Cork Wine Bar, Blue Stone Pizza, Craft Beer Cellar and the Prohibition Pig have visitors flocking to Waterbury in search of craft beers and first-class food.

“If there never was a flood, this wouldn’t be happening,” Prohibition Pig owner Chad Rich said by phone on Monday. He was directing plumbers and electricians inside the flooded-ravaged building at 2 Elm St., directly behind his restaurant at 23 S. Main St.

He installed the popular pork-centric restaurant and bar at the former Alchemist location after Irene flooded the building. The Alchemist retreated uphill to its cannery in Waterbury Center, where it was able to resume production of Heady Topper, rated by many as the No. 1 beer in the world.

And now Rich is breathing new life into the historic Elm Street building, making space for his own craft brewery operation, plus an outdoor patio and much-needed storage space.

But first, Rich is making sure it can stand up to a future flood — though he hopes Waterbury never endures one again.

“It’s awesome and it’s vibrant here, and I just hope the flooding like Irene doesn’t happen again,” he said. “No one wants to go through that ever again.”

The Elm Street building, hauled to its current location by oxen in 1899, will be refurbished with 3.25-inch plywood that can withstand water. The new foundation has 10-foot-call concrete walls, reinforced and sealed to keep water out, and equipped with two sump pumps if it somehow gets in.

New walls are held together with rustproof, stainless steel screws, and filled with spray foam insulation that can be easily replaced in the event of water damage so no demolition is needed.

Rich is hoping to hold a community preview late this week, with free barbecue sandwiches and sodas for the people on Elm and Randall streets who endured flooding, and then parking and traffic headaches during reconstruction.

Nerves on edge

Around the corner on Randall Street, residents can’t forget what happened.

Tom Drake, his wife and three children waded through knee-high water to escape flooding around their home at 5 Randall St. Drake, the Crossett Brook Middle School principal, said his family’s nerves still rise whenever the waters of the Winooski do, and the same goes for his neighbors.

Despite the nervousness, Drake said life has mostly returned to normal, with one notable exception: “We know our neighbors much better than pre-Irene.” Going through the disaster pulled people together, he said.

Drake’s sons Guthrie and Teagan, then 17 and 14, were members of the Harwood Union High School boys’ soccer team, and players from both the boys’ and girls’ teams converged on Randall Street residences, including their home, to help.

About 30 students lined up in bucket brigades, removing water and muck from basements up and down the street.

Three years after the Irene mess, Drake said his family, along with owners of six other Randall Street residences, are still waiting to hear about a federal grant to elevate their homes above the 100-year floodplain and help lower their flood insurance rates.

While they wait, Randall Street residents have delayed work on their homes because the foundation work would just undo what they’d done.

“Am I happy that Irene happened?” Drake said. “I am not. I’d much prefer potlucks and block parties to bring the neighborhood together.”

Government rebuilding

Irene is the reason Waterbury is planning a new $4.5 million municipal complex and the state government is spending $125 million to restore the State Office Complex.

Mike Stevens, the state official who oversees the work, said the office complex should be completed by the end of next year.

Structural steel has been installed for the central office building and the foundation is ready for a new central utilities plant.

The new structures and older buildings have all been elevated out of the 500-year floodplain — that is, a place likely to flood only twice every millennium.

Just outside the State Office Complex, the Hunger Mountain Children’s Center is aiming to move back into its building at 123 S. Main St. a year from now. The center, in a temporary space at Hunger Mountain Church on Route 100 in Waterbury Center, operated on South Main Street for 33 years before Irene shut it down.

Lisa Scagliotti, the center’s board president, said the children’s center is working on a deal to buy the buildings at 123 and 121 S. Main St., with help from a $520,000 federal grant and $200,000 in financing from Northfield Saving Bank.

New town complex

At the other end of Main Street, construction will start next April on a new municipal complex. Irene destroyed the town and village government offices and the village police station at 51 S. Main St.

The $4.5 million project will renovate what’s now the Waterbury Public Library, and the town historical society will move in. A new, bigger library will be part of the municipal complex, along with town and village offices and a community meeting space.

All this has happened, in part, because of Irene, said state Rep. Rebecca Ellis, D-Waterbury.

Looking back, the most important thing that’s happened in town is that people were able to return to the places they call home.

“ReBuild Waterbury helped about 150 families get back into their homes. That’s a great accomplishment that was done in the first year after Irene,” she said.

Ellis said she’s proud of how Waterbury is recovering from the flood and taking advantage of the opportunity to solve longstanding problems. For instance, the Ladd Hall building on South Main Street is being converted into 27 affordable apartments that should be ready a year from now.

Ellis said officials had talked for years about upgrading the State Office Complex, but the flood forced the talk into action.

Smaller projects, such as generators at Thatcher Brook Primary School and for the drinking water system on Sweet Road, also occurred post-Irene.

Now, FEMA touts Waterbury as an example for other communities to follow.

The common thread in these projects: “They all took off and started because of the flooding, and then the community energy and goodwill towards these projects helped to make them a success,” Ellis said.

Still gets teary

Village President Skip Flanders agrees Waterbury has made remarkable progress in three years, but there’s still a considerable way to go.

“On the surface, things look better than maybe what they are behind the scenes, in terms of damage and the challenges that people are still facing financially to recover,” he said. “Many may never recover from what it took to repair from Irene.”

He worried about people whose retirement savings were chewed up by Irene, and about how much flood insurance rates will rise because of Irene.

Flanders says he still gets teary-eyed looking at the striking photos from Irene or watching footage on TV. “There’s certainly a lot to be thankful for, but there’s a lot of changes still ahead,” he said.