Battered by the storm, Barnet neighbors take stock of damage

Jack Stewart stands in his home in Barnet on July 11, 2024. Photo by Ethan Weinstein/VTDigger

BARNET — Jack Stewart stood barefoot, mud from the Stevens River caked between his toes.

“I had to stop my shoes from going out the door,” he laughed, recalling the night’s flooding. Surveying the scene, Stewart, 73, named what was gone and what remained. He lost two willow trees. He watched his grill drift away in the torrent. The concrete wall built by the Army Corp of Engineers after the 1927 flood remained standing, but the river had overtaken it.

“In 1927, a flood happened, and it did that,” Stewart said, pointing to a once-again destroyed Church Street along the Barnet Village Store Thursday morning. “But not as bad.”

Barnet, spared by last summer’s floods, faced a far worse fate on Wednesday. Caught by sheets of rain, the town along eastern Vermont faced some of the most destructive flash flooding, damaging homes, roads, and businesses.

Inside his home, Stewart used a dustpan to uncake globs of mud. He’d worked with his hands til 4:30 in the morning.

“I decided I’d get a couple hours of sleep.”

Jack Stewart, 73, surveys the scene in Barnet on July 11, 2024. Photo by Ethan Weinstein/VTDigger

Just up Church Street, neighbors Bill Brauer and Bob Abbott got caught up.

“Now you listen to this,” Brauer told Abbott. “Our septic system’s washed away.”

“Oh, no shit,” said Abbott.

“Which means these homes may be uninhabitable for a few weeks,” said Brauer.

Together, they walked to the village store — still what the town calls the building, they said, though it hasn’t operated for years. From the roof, a dog barked. Seemingly stranded, it ran from corner to corner.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Battered by the storm, Barnet neighbors take stock of damage.