More than a day and a half of rain over the weekend brought floods across the state.
One of the worst hit was Cheshire County which got nearly a foot of rain.
Road and houses washed away.
And the Governor has declared a State of Emergency.
After the waters receded on Sunday, residents of Alstead surveyed the damage.
The Vermont Standard's Kevin Forrest reports:
“….(voice on police radio) There is no road at all, there’s no bridge or anything here in front of her house…)
Fire Chief (on radio) – 10-5, we’ll pass it along.
Chief (to reporter) There’s one more accounted for
Alstead fire chief Kim Kercewich, weary from lack of sleep, still managed a smile at the good news.
He had been awake most of the night Saturday.
In this small, southwest NH town, floodwaters have washed away cars, trucks and buildings.
Roads have disappeared and stranded some people in their homes.
But the chief says he doesn’t know of any fatalities:
Kercwich – Not that we’re aware of. But we do have a list of missing that we’re attempting to locate at this time. As you’ve just heard, we’ve just located another one.
Emergency workers mingled with several hundred onlookers wandering through village Sunday afternoon.
The Cold River still raged and roared under the damaged Route 12-A bridge, the centerpiece of this scenic historic village.
The yellow “keep out†ribbons strung across the bridge were ignored as curious residents inspected battered highway signs and debris thrown up onto the span.
This town of less than 2,000 people was weathering the weekend storm fairly well until early Sunday morning.
That’s when the runoff from Lake Warren overwhelmed a culvert on Cooper Hill.
Chief Kercewich.:
Kercewich – And the water gradually backed up against he roadbed and eventually crested over the road bed and when it did we literally had a wall of water coming down on top of the flood waters we already had.
And says Kercewich, emergency workers were surprised at the speed at which the flood came through.
Kercewich – At that time we actually had a command post set up at the police station which is underneath the town building over there, the town offices. And in the space of two minutes it flooded Millard Green, probably to a depth of about eight feet. We had houses goin’ down through there, trailers, cars, pickups…you name it.
Emergency workers throughout New Hampshire had been on flood alert.
But what happened exceeded their expectations, and Kercwich, a lifelong resident, couldn’t believe what happened.
Kercwich – I’ve lived in town all my life and I’ve never seen anything like this. The bridge over there, we had water coming right over the top of it. You see trailers going down through, buildings, like I said, vehicles…Commitch’s garage up around the corner is totally gone. There’s a pile of trees and branches there that’s probably 25-30 feet high.
Onlookers seem stunned by the damage.
Wayne Guyette – It looks like a big hurricane came through!
That’s Wayne Guyette Jr. He’s lived here 23 years.
Guyette - I’ve never, never seen it this bad. This is the first time I’ve every seen the river’s crest this high.
A few hundred yards downriver from the bridge, Paul Garatoni slogs through the mud, leading a visitor inside his home,one of the first built in Alstead Village.
Garatoni - We bought this house 9 years and basically restored it back to the original…(wife cautions him not to go further,, he responds) I’m not going to go into the far end, no I won’t, I’m gonna go here.
Garatoni to visitor - She’s really worried about the place caving in and I don’t blame her…
The Garatoni’s small home, which seems to hang out over the river, is stuffed with collectibles—antiques, knickknacks, artifacts, rugs woven by Mrs Garatoni.
Visitors used to compare it to a museum.
The structure is intact.
But now several inches of mud cover the floors and many of their beloved items have been destroyed.
Paul, however, knows he’s lucky.
Garatoni – My friend down here, we watched half of his house go into the river.
The couple had settled in for a cup of coffee early Sunday morning when they were told to evacuate.
Paul was surprised.
The river seemed unusually high but not threatening. They went over to a friend’s house.
In a few minutes, Margaret yelled to Paul that the river had come up to the road.
Garatoni – In about 20 minutes it came nine feet from the river and it was across the road and we said, ‘Holy Jesus!’
After the big rush of water went through, the couple surveyed the damage.
Gartoni - We got mud in my bathtub. Her rugs, for years and years of work, you can see laying in there on the floor, they’re covered with mud.
But as the waters slowly receded Sunday afternoon, Garatoni and his wife appear hopeful and glad to be alive.
Garatoni – We’ll survive and you come back again in a year—that’s an invite—and look at it and you’ll say, ‘Jesus, how the hell did you get the mud out?â€
For NHPR news, this is Kevin Forrest.
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