After my lovely visit to NJ I made my way home. Thelma had emailed that VT 107 was opening Friday morning, and I basked in the happy thought of not making the over-an-hour-long detour at the end of a long drive. But I got to Stockbridge well after dark and was greeting with flashing signs saying "Route 107 open - use extreme caution", and was happy to have a car in front of me.
The road is where it used to be, but it doesn't feel like it used to (hey, that's called new pavement) and the curves are just a little different, and the slopes are just a little different. These minor differences keep you on your toes. I'd forgotten just how far it is from the 107/100 intersection to Tozier's restaurant. Repairs were more than replacing the washed-away section. Repairs were made to the whole length of that stretch of highway.
The White River consumed about four miles of VT 107, and destroyed culverts, small bridges, and roadway for three miles further along. If you never saw the post-Irene pictures of VT 107, look here and here.
When I started looking for those pictures, I googled "VT107 Irene". I was amazed. It was all about the reopening! The first result was from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Then the Burlington Free Press. Then the Albany NY Times Union. The Houston Chronicle. A Palm Beach paper. The Deseret News in Salt Lake City. This was an AP news story, and newspapers across the country picked it up. In early September we learned that Irene's destruction in Vermont was national news, but four full months later? Newspapers are struggling, and this isn't the news-heavy time of year. Still, an awful lot of editors decided this was an end-of-year ending worth covering. The timing was certainly right,and it's a good start to 2012. In Vermont, our worst winter weather is in January and February!
When I left Vermont on December 26, VT 107 was still closed. I had to go over Camp Brook Road (post-Irene picture here), fully restored in September, to Rochester and then took VT 100 south. I almost never need to be over there so this was the first time I'd seen this hard-hit area in real life. It was still a shock to see that the place where a house was washed away is still empty except for an excavator (what did I expect - a reconstruction miracle?). Many farm fields still have earth-moving equipment parked in them. Temporary bridges abound. There were surprising stretches of new pavement, reminders of where the river had been. Houses looked OK, but upon slowing down, some now appear unoccupied.
Repairs have been made in Braintree and South Royalton. There is progress in Bethel. Jamaica and Marlboro and Wardsboro in southern Vermont are slowly rebuilding. Waterbury is finding its way. Route 9 and Route 4 and Route 100 are open, and now, Route 107. But driving along 100 and 107, the trees that the storm uprooted are still dumped along roadsides and river banks. The river debris and construction equipment are covered with a light dusting of snow, and will become huge mysterious mounds as winter progresses. They look more and more permanent.
The rock trains will run as long as the tracks stay clear and weather permits construction to continue. But come spring, will there be the energy, the money, the time to finish rebuilding and repairing? To reclaim farm fields again? Will homeowners replace temporary bridges with permanent ones, or leave them in the event of a repeat storm? All the repairs, heroic and astonishing as they were, don't touch the fact that much of Vermont will never be the same. I think 2012 is going to be a year of coming to terms with a future that has changed for many people in many ways.
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