Summer flood experience helps Waterbury businesses react once again
December 22, 2023 | By Sandy Yusen and Lisa Scagliotti
Jackson Strayer-Benton, beverage manager at Prohibition Pig, pressure washes benches from the brewery’s outdoor patio space on Tuesday. Photo by Sandy Yusen
As floodwaters rose throughout the day on Monday, Waterbury’s downtown businesses put out calls to their friends, patrons and supporters to help brace their establishments for the inevitable. Memories still fresh from the July flood, volunteers helped along Main Street and Elm Street moving inventory, equipment and supplies out of basements and areas likely to see water from the Winooski River encroach once again.
Wine bottles hauled upstairs above the Wine Vault. Food and supplies were packed up and moved out of the Prohibition Pig kitchen. Off-season sporting goods were squeezed onto the main sales floor at Waterbury Sports. Even at Wesley United Methodist Church, dozens of Christmas gifts on tables in the basement hall ready to go to local children in the annual Giving Tree effort were re-staged in the nave upstairs.
With sump pumps at the ready and some sandbags in front of doors, business owners warily watched and waited as water approached throughout the afternoon. Around 8 p.m., the river crested -- about two feet lower than in the July 11 flood.
By 10 p.m., South Main Street was abuzz with the sound of electric pumps running. Shopkeepers standing by watched water receding on the street and sidewalks. “It just kissed our place this time,” Wine Vault owner Anastasia Kohl remarked standing on the sidewalk outside her shop entrance, river debris scattered on wet concrete right up to the sandbags leaning on her door.
On Tuesday morning, the mood was a combination of resilience and resignation as business owners assessed damage and began cleaning up after the second major flood event of 2023 in Waterbury.
Overall, Monday’s flooding did not appear to be as detrimental or widespread as the damage from the July flood, but many Waterbury establishments took on enough water to significantly disrupt business.
Karen Nevin, executive director of Revitalizing Waterbury, wrote in an email to the community on Tuesday, “It's good to see that our residents and local businesses were not AS impacted by this week's flooding as in the past, however, water still made its way into basements.”
P. Howard "Skip" Flanders, church trustee, set up a makeshift barrier to protect the new furnace installed in the Methodist Church basement just before Thanksgiving. “That and prayers helped it work,” Flanders said. Photo by Sandy Yusen
Unfortunately, Bargain Boutique once again is one of the hardest-hit businesses along South Main Street having gotten five feet of water in the basement, Nevin shared in an interview.
Owner Kathy Cummings on Tuesday morning wore a winter coat behind the register of the busy thrift shop because the store had no heat. The basement flooding wiped out the new electric heating system that had been installed this summer after the July floods destroyed the furnace.
Cummings said it was hard to know the extent of the new damage until the water receded. “We’ll just clean it up and do it again…at least we know how to do it now,” she said.
Waterbury Sports also was open for business on Tuesday, its first floor retail space jam-packed with bicycles and other inventory that staff and customers helped bring up from the basement the day before.
Ryan McGuire, co-owner of the South Main Street store with Chuck Hughson and Caleb Magoon, reported that the basement had just five inches of water at its highest point, less to pump out than in the summer. This time, McGuire said, they were ready with pumps at the start of the storm. “This is the second time this year so we’ve got a pretty good plan,” he said.
In July, the sports store closed for two weeks to clean up after its basement was fully submerged in the flooding. “We were just a few tasks away from being fully cleaned up” after the July flood, McGuire admitted. “We keep rolling; that’s all we can do.”
Methodist Church mop up begins with help from a few ‘elves’
Pastor Sam Newton (left) and trustee P. Howard "Skip" Flanders take a break from cleanup on Tuesday at the side entrance to the Wesley United Methodist Church. Photo by Sandy Yusen
Next door at the Wesley United Methodist Church, trustee P. Howard “Skip” Flanders and Pastor Sam Newton were cleaning up around the side entrance on Tuesday. Sandbags which had been stacked against the door were piled outside and Flanders was scraping sealant foam from the door frame that was used to fill the cracks around the casing. Flanders said he was relieved that these preventative steps were effective. While the waters reached 18 inches outside, the church had just an inch and a half of water in the basement -- better by comparison with four feet in July and nine feet during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.
Makeshift barriers in the church basement included strategically stacked floor tiles guiding water towards a floor drain in the bathroom. A sump pump hose stretched out of a basement window was set up early in the storm to keep water out. Additional defense measures were set up in the boiler room, where a new furnace had been installed just before Thanksgiving replacing the previous one that was destroyed in July. The barriers included a sandbag, cinder blocks, and a stack of thick books, topped by “The World Guide to House Plants.” Looking at the setup, Flanders quipped, “That and prayers helped it work.”
The church basement hall which is used by various community organizations throughout the year, was already mopped and awaiting dehumidifiers Tuesday morning. Flanders and Newton speculated whether the sheetrock on the walls would need to be repaired again after this week’s damage. A band of new sheetrock about four feet tall stretches up from the floor around the perimeter of the room, marking the height of the July flood damage.
Community “elves” helped move 75 bags of holiday gifts up from the church basement to the main floor. The gifts are from the Waterbury Giving Tree Program organized by the Waterbury Public Library. Photo by Sandy Yusen
A few days before the flood, tables in the basement room held 75 bags filled with wrapped holiday gifts donated by community members for the annual Waterbury Giving Tree program organized by the Waterbury Public Library. Flanders described how “elves” helped move all of the gifts up to the main level of the church keeping the Christmas spirit intact for area children.
Having now endured multiple floods as a church trustee as well as a homeowner on Elm Street, Flanders knows the drill well. “Since Irene, if you have stuff in your basement, you’re at risk,” he said.Church services will continue as planned for Christmas eve, Newton said.
Pro Pig pumps out while other Elm Street shops dodged heavy flooding
Hoses snake between the Prohibition Pig restaurant and brewery on Elm Street as they remove water and debris from the building basements. Photo by Sandy Yusen
It was a familiar sight as well on the opposite side of South Main where both restaurant and brewery buildings at Prohibition Pig damage once again. On Tuesday, as a light sleet started to fall, sump pumps from Pro Pig and neighboring houses hummed loudly down Elm Street. Hoses extruding from the restaurant’s lower level snaked along the sidewalk gushing muddy water.
Pro Pig’s beverage director Jackson Strayer-Benton took a break from power-washing outdoor benches on the restaurant’s patio to share the status. “We had I would say somewhere between a foot to two feet of water in both buildings,” he reported.
Well before the storm, Strayer-Benton and the Pro Pig team kept a close eye on the weather and Winooski River levels, he said, which allowed them to take action quickly as the river exceeded forecasted heights. “Our team was able to jump on it to help bring everything up into the restaurant as much as we could, whether it be appliances, products, or food from the basement,” said Strayer-Benton, expressing gratitude for community members who came by to help.
He compared this event to July, when the brewery flooded to the ceiling of the basement and destroyed equipment and brewing components. “We just had to empty it out and throw it all away,” he said. When all is checked carefully this time, he said he’s hoping for a better outcome. “New ice machines, new walk-in coolers, new freezers – all those things we’re hoping are okay,” he said. “We’re still kind of in the exploring phase in terms of what we need to replace and what needs to happen.”
After what he called an “all-hands-on-deck team event” to clean and reorganize, the brewery was slated to reopen on Thursday (and it did), followed by the main restaurant next week.
Pro Pig’s location at the corner of Elm and Randall streets gives Strayer-Benton a close view of the neighbors cleaning up their homes from the storm.
“It’s obviously really devastating for this area and this community given what everyone went through in July and have to go through this again,” he said. “We all looked at Irene as a once-in-a-lifetime event, but having it happen again in July and then having it happen again now…it’s hard to know what to feel or how to go forward. And this is a business, but we have houses and people’s homes that are destroyed and families that have to get moved. So we’re trying to keep it in perspective of what’s important.”
Unlike the pumping, mopping and ripping out that happened in July, Tuesday’s work across the street at the Wine Vault was a “put everything away party” with help from customers that owner Kohl rallied on social media. She also shared thanks to “everybody who helped us prepare for the worst” early in the storm.
The wine shop shares an entrance with Red Poppy Cakery that likewise took a big hit in July. The summer floods struck during the busy wedding season, rendering its space unusable and taking out a fridge, washer, and about $1,000 worth of inventory. Luckily this week, it too remained dry.
The building that houses Craft Beer Cellar on Elm Street bears high-water marks from July, Irene and the monster flood of November 1927. By comparison, Monday’s deluge left the shop “relatively unscathed” by just six inches of water in the basement, according to owner Nate Dunbar. He and his wife Elizabeth have only owned the business since May, but they are quickly learning how to navigate floods.
Dunbar said he believes the planning he did after the July flood paid off. He shored up the foundation, added plastic wrap and sandbags, and emptied the basement. Still, Dunbar said he worries what the financial impact may be from this new blow. He’s recently made some changes to the shop like adding a small bar. Another flood may once again put a dent in customer traffic from tourists and local customers alike, this time during the holiday season, he suggested.
Elsewhere in low-lying areas around Waterbury, businesses managed to dodge major damage. Although the River Road to the Ice Center closed on Monday afternoon due to high river levels and road washout, there was no flooding at Irving Oil or at the rink. Revitalizing Waterbury staff checking in with business owners found that most businesses further down South Main Street were spared, although residences in between the business sections were impacted.
On the west side of town along U.S. Route 2, many homeowners are contending with cleaning up from flooded basements. Business owner Henry Parro was relieved that his property did not flood despite being within view of the Winooski River. The shop closed early on Monday in order for employees to get home. Then they waited.
Parro credits geography for the good fortune now twice this year. “We have the railroad tracks as a dam protecting us,” he said.
Revitalizing Waterbury shares flood recovery resources
Looking ahead, Nevin explained the role Revitalizing Waterbury plays in supporting businesses during times of crisis. “As boots on the ground, we’re making sure we check in with our businesses. They know to document, document, document, let us know what they need, and see how we can help,” she said. Her email to the community included links to local resources for flood response for businesses and residents.
“We know how to do this because it just keeps happening,” Nevin said. “With that we have the tools on hand, sump pumps, sandbags. We know not to wait before you start working on it. We also have this town, which will call a select board meeting on the spot just to start getting everybody coordinated and organized.”
In addition to crediting town officials for taking quick action, she also commends the focus of CReW (the committee for the Community Resilience for the Waterbury Area), the new long-term recovery effort sponsored by Revitalizing Waterbury. In addition to flood recovery, its focus is to look ahead to resiliency, so that residents and businesses are able to bounce back “every single time” from adverse events.
“It’s our new normal quite honestly,” she said.
To sign up to volunteer with flood cleanup tasks, and for other local flood-response information, see the Flood Resource Document on the town’s website WaterburyVt.com.