The Flood Safety Act aims to better protect Vermonters from devastating floods like those we experienced in July and December of 2023. Photo: Julie Silverman
In early February, I was headed home with our children from school pick-up. Several feet of snow covered the ground, but an eerie spring-like fog surrounded us. The unseasonably warm air smelled of the ocean. Several days of downpours were causing rising floodwaters, and we could hear each passing waterway raging. It was too close for comfort to the catastrophic flooding we experienced in July and December 2023, when rivers overran their banks and entire communities found themselves underwater.
As we picked our way along muddy dirt roads marked with deep ruts, we saw a neighbor approaching from the other direction. As Vermonters often do, we stopped, turned off the engines, and chatted in the dwindling daylight. The…