After the huricane; news from Barbara

Barbara and Larry were in Vermont for hurricane Irene. Here is some of Barbara's letter -

"Funny how the storm went. Was pretty westerly in New York but here it roared up the east side of Vermont so the greatest damage was on the east side. It has been heartwarming to see how local people got right out on Monday morning and began work of clearing roads, feeding people. Our village, for example, set up an emergency shelter, served hot meals to anyone who came in, made clean water available so you could take buckets there. Run by volunteers. Our own road damage was first repaired by a neighbor who brought his own machine and plowed enough for 4 wheel drive vehicles could get through. All our deep wells require electric pumps so we were all without water here in the country. But in many towns as well the town pumps couldn't work.

The damage is amazing. Several towns were cut off from the rest of the world. Wardsboro, our neighbor town, is still cut off because the roads were devastated. Big bridges generally held. It is the small bridges over creeks that were torn apart and often the drainage culverts that carry runoff under the road were overwhelmed and the water ate around the culvert pipe and undermined the road.

...sorrowing for all the people who have lost their businesses or jobs or have big repairs to make to houses or outbuildings. One thing that made it hard to restore electricity was the need to clear the road enough for the electric peoples' trucks to get in. New Jersey and New York have big damage and it affects thousands more people. Only a half million live in Vermont. That is probably why it is so neighborly."

I'm sure that all Larry and Barbara's many friends in Tilling send love and all the best in the clean-up.