Déjà vu: Church faces flood damage, cleanup, repairs – again
August 12, 2023 | By Olivia Conti | Community News Service 
Four feet and 200,000 gallons of water soaked the walls of Waterbury’s Wesley United Methodist Church basement during the catastrophic floods last month — putting the church in a position to yet again rebuild from flood damage.
It took the church on South Main Street more than 10 years to recover from flood damage from Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. Just this spring, the church had finally finished renovations from the 9 feet of water that flooded the church’s basement during that catastrophic storm.
But now the newly renovated space has to face recovery again.
July 14: Mud covers the church basement floor. Drywall is being removed and bagged. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
Kitchen appliances and parts of the walls that were submerged in water need replacing. Sections of the walls have been cut out to prevent mold, including those in a Sunday school room painted with children’s handprints. The walls to the bathroom are now open to wooden studs and are covered with a tarp so people can at least use one of them with a little privacy.
Church leaders say they haven’t yet figured out everything they need to replace or how much it will cost. They also are waiting to hear how much insurance will cover.
“I think the hardest thing with this flood for us is to say, ‘Oh, no, not again … Emotionally it's tough,” said Rev. Sam Newton, the church’s pastor.
The church uses the downstairs space for its own events, Sunday school and receptions. But the hall isn’t just a place for parishioners. Community groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous hold meetings in the space. One of the town Recreation Department’s summer camps was meeting there and switched after the flood to use Brookside Primary School for the rest of the summer. Community members also can rent the space for birthday parties, baby showers or other types of gatherings.
“We feel that when we rebuilt this, that we wanted to build it not just for the church but for the community,” Newton said.
Pastor Sam Newton gives a tour to show cleanup progress just five days later on July 19. Photo by Gordon Miller
The pastor feels passionate about giving back to the community and spoke about how facing yet another flood setback isn’t easy.
It’s also a place that means a lot to members.
“It's a lifetime of memories,” said P. Howard “Skip” Flanders, a member of the church’s board of trustees who’s been part of the parish his entire life. “You know, we got married in that church. Our kids were baptized there.”
It took about $500,000 to pay for all the damages to the church after Irene. Newton predicts the costs this time around will be about $200,000. He’s hoping flood insurance will cover most of it. The pastor and Flanders figure it’ll take between six months and a year for everything to be fixed, but they’re not yet certain.
It’s unclear what the fundraising need will be to fully repair the church this time. For now, anyone interested in helping out can make a donation and send either to P.O. Box 214, Waterbury, VT 05676 — marked for the church’s flood relief fund — or drop off in the mail slot at the church.
Local history postscript
Elm Street flooding captured by Benton Leland and published in The Waterbury Record, Sept. 29, 1938.
One of Waterbury’s most avid local historians, Flanders doesn’t miss the opportunity to draw parallels between current events and Waterbury’s past. He points out that a significant event in Wesley United Methodist Church history happened exactly one century ago.
On July 15, 1923, the funeral of Waterbury native U.S. Sen. William P. Dillingham was held at the church with then-Vice President Calvin Cooledge in attendance. Coolidge would be sworn in as president just two weeks later at his childhood home in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, on Aug. 3, 1923, following the sudden death of President Warren G. Harding.
Flanders also noted that this summer’s flood was the third 100-year flood event to hit Waterbury since the infamous 1927 flood. Just 11 years later in September 1938, a hurricane struck Vermont causing major flooding to the town, Flanders said. He shared a photograph printed in the Sept. 29, 1938 edition of the Waterbury Record newspaper at the time showing flood waters on Elm Street – where Flanders lives today.
“The photo was taken by Benton Leland who operated the pool room where the Blackback Pub is now,” Flanders said. “Looks a lot like a picture from 2023 except for the age of the cars.”
That storm today is a footnote in local history but it did significant damage, Flanders said. “It was the hurricane of ’38 that toppled the first WDEV radio tower constructed in 1936. It was 435 feet tall,” he said.
The pattern of major floods happening twice just over a decade apart – 1927 and 1938, and now 2011 and 2023 – is noteworthy and slightly uncanny, Flanders said. “Eerie how history is repeating itself,” he remarked.
Elm Street flooding the morning of July 11, 2023. Photo by Gordon Miller
Community News Service is a collaboration with the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.