Their homes in Vermont were inundated by extreme flooding. A year later, they are still struggling to recover

MONTPELIER, Vt. – One year later catastrophic floods flooded parts of Vermont, Lisa Edson Neveu and her two teenage children still live in their flood-ravaged home, despite unrepaired damage that festers like an open wound: walls and floors ripped out, a missing ceiling in a bedroom and a downstairs bathroom which is no longer. The family’s kitchen has been destroyed and they prepare meals on an outdoor grill, electric skillet or air fryer.

“The flood was terrible. The water was high. He was running down the back slope. It was dark, it was stormy. All of this was horrible, but that’s not the really traumatic part,” said Neveu, 52. “This part was incredible for everyone, neighbors helped neighbors, the community helped each other. The National Guard was incredible. What has been traumatic and beyond anything I can explain is how horrible this past year has been.”

Since the floods last July that left the capital of Montpelier under waist-deep water, it has been “a battle with the insurance companies, the adjusters, the city, the state, FEMA and the federal government and nothing is aligned with anything else,” Neveu said.

A year later, the family is still in limbo as the city determines which homes it can build — above the threat of flooding — or buy with funding allocated by the Legislature. But Neveu and his neighbor doubt the city has enough money to do all the work and say there isn’t a solid plan a year after the floods.

They are not alone. Many Vermonters in Montpelier, nearby Barre and other parts of the state continue to suffer from the flood’s aftermath, waiting to learn whether their homes will be elevated or whether FEMA will buy them, a process that could take years.

In May, Vermont became the first state enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a portion of the damage caused by extreme weather fueled by climate change. Republican Gov. Phil Scott allowed the bill to become law without his signature, saying he is very concerned about the costs and outcome of the small state taking on “Big Oil” alone in what will likely be a grueling legal fight. But he acknowledged that he understands that something has to be done to address the impact of climate change.

Montpelier Mayor Jack McCullough said the small town still shows scars from the floods.

“It’s not over yet for some people who are here,” he said. About a dozen homes were seriously damaged.

But the city has come back in many ways, he added. Most downtown buildings and businesses have reopened and most flood victims are back in their homes, he said.

“We are making progress, but it will take more time,” he said.

Mike Miller, the city’s planning director, said Neveu’s house is at the top of the list to be elevated and if the city builds one this year, it will be hers unless some unforeseen technical issue arises. Most will likely happen next year, he said.

“Our goal is to save as many housing units as possible,” he said in an email.

More than 3,160 homes across the state have sustained enough damage to warrant repair assistance from FEMA, according to Douglas Farnham, the state’s recovery director. Cities are still doing assessments of badly damaged homes, but so far 200 homeowners are interested in buyouts, he said in an email.

Ed Haggett, 70, who lived next door to Neveu, is one of them.

“I lived here 47 years,” he said. “It was my retirement. I was a single mother, I raised my daughter. I invested everything in this, I paid for it and I thought I was ready, but I wasn’t. I lost everything.”

For the past year, Haggett has been living with his daughter, grandchildren and significant others — seven adults — while waiting for a decision on whether Montpelier or FEMA will buy his badly damaged home. He can’t afford to fix it and plans to get a loan from the Small Business Administration to build an addition to his daughter’s house. But he said the organization missed its application in January for seven weeks, delaying the process.

Haggett’s homeowner’s insurance only paid for part of the damage, he said. He has been sleeping in his daughter’s hole for a year. Bureaucratic delays and uncertainty harm people’s health, he said.

“It’s extremely, extremely, extremely frustrating,” Haggett said.

McCullough said the city hopes to have enough funds to upgrade or buy the homes of some of the hardest hit people, but he wasn’t sure when.

In the nearby city of Barre, about 350 residential and commercial structures suffered some type of damage from last July’s flooding, according to city administrator Nicolas Storellicastro. Sixty-two applications – residential and commercial – were submitted for acquisitions and 10 homes were identified for elevations, Storellicastro said.

Further afield, in Berlin, the floods of last July mutilated the mobile home where Sara Morris, her husband, her three children and her mother lived. For the last year, they have stayed with her mother, her husband and her brother – nine people in a three-bedroom house.

“There is no space. We are on top of each other,” she said. “We’re finally starting to get to where we’re fighting with each other. We’re fighting, we’re arguing some more.”

She has her children in counseling because of what the family has been through.

“I feel like sometimes I’ve lost a little bit of my kids just because of everything we’ve been through,” she said.

Last month, they were finally able to buy another mobile home and land, about 3 acres (1.21 hectares) in Middlesex. The house arrives at the end of August and they hope to have it ready to move in by mid-September.

“I really wanted to do something better with what we went through,” Morris said. “And I was determined.”

Neveu lives in a flood zone and had flood insurance, but only paid half of it, she said. The house was not damaged by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 and she never expected water to reach the first floor last year.

For now, while the house is in disrepair, she and her children have hung party lights on the walls, mounted a flat-screen TV and hung artwork and a beloved chiming clock. They often spend evenings on the large porch with friends and enjoy watching the wide Winooski River across the street.

The family loves seeing downtown Montpelier being rebuilt and businesses reopening, but it also makes them feel left behind, she said.

“It’s so bizarrely alienating because we can’t move forward,” Neveu said. “We’re excited about any positive movement, but it’s really crazy that a year later, there isn’t even a plan. And not because we didn’t try.”