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DEVELOPING: Vermont Capital on the Brink of Catastrophic Disaster

States across the northeast have experienced torrential rainfall the past few days, including parts of New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont.

The “Green Mountain State” received the worst of the downpour and was labeled the ‘highest risk’ state by the National Weather Service.

Vermont’s capital, Montpelier, the smallest capital city in the United States, sits on the brink of a catastrophic flooding disaster.

Officials in the flooded town said nearby Wrightsville Dam had six feet of storage capacity remaining on Monday.

However, the dam’s capacity has dwindled to one foot on Tuesday.

The only way to currently navigate the downtown area is by boat or paddle.

Here’s the extent of the damage in Montpelier captured on video:

According to the Daily Mail, over 100 people have been rescued from the city.

However, many more are trapped due to dozens of road closures.

Daily Mail reports:

In the capital alone emergency services have rescued more than 110 people, while many more remain trapped due to the floods cutting off 78 roads and damaging police, ambulance and fire service headquarters.

Aerial footage shows the colossal scale of the destruction, along with reservoir levels edging dangerously close to the edge of the dam.

The dam is surrounded by miles of water-logged fields leading to the city, where the streets are completely submerged.

Rescuers clad in life jackets and helmets can be seen using motorized rafts to traverse brown rivers which had been roads just days ago.

Another angle shows a figure in a canoe floating beside second-story windows amid car bonnets which are only just visible above the surface.

On Tuesday, Montpelier Police Department said water levels in Wrightsville Reservoir, Washington County, had risen five more feet since Monday night.

‘Waters are still rising at the dam and are approaching approximately one foot from the spillway,’ the force said.

‘What does that mean? Every additional foot of water that goes over the spillway doubles the amount of water entering the City from the dam.

Meteorologist Jim Cantore shared this update from the city of Montpelier Facebook page.

VT Digger had the latest updates:

The City of Montpelier warned on Tuesday that the nearby Wrightsville Dam could reach capacity, forcing it to release water into the north branch of the Winooski River upstream of Vermont’s capital.

Even as floodwater started to recede from downtown by mid-morning, though, officials said the threat remained. As of 1:20 p.m. on Tuesday, the water level was roughly one foot short of the top of the dam, said Stephanie Brackin, spokesperson for the Department of Environmental Conservation.

That was the same level as about two hours earlier, when the police department indicated that the dam had lost about five feet of storage capacity in less than eight hours.

A member of the department’s dam safety program, Ben Green, told Brackin that the rate of increase in the water level had slowed considerably, Brackin said. It was still unclear if it would spill over the spillway.

“We’re just not going to know until we know,” Brackin said. “There could be a little spillage. There could be a lot.”

This is a developing story. 


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