Geoff Bennett :
From Texas to North Carolina, from New England to the Midwest, communities are facing a growing threat from flash flooding. At the same time, many of those regions already lack enough affordable housing, a problem made worse by these storms.
For our climate series Tipping Point, William Brangham reports on how one community in Central Vermont is trying to find a new way to move to higher ground.
Jake McBride, Flood Victim:
Somewhere around right here would be the front porch.
William Brangham:
This now empty space is where Jake McBride’s home used to be, the small apartment building in the village of Plainfield, Vermont, that sat next to the Great Brook River. It was affectionately known as the Heartbreak Hotel, a building where he says a community flourished, one woven into the town’s past and future.
Jake McBride:
So many people I know lived here and then were able to save and buy their own home in Plainfield. It was a gateway to this area that we just don’t have anymore.
William Brangham:
Just upstream, Christiana Athena-Blackwell and her husband, Walker, bought their dream home in 2023 next to the Great Brook. But they’re now waiting on a buyout from FEMA and fondly remembering the times before the flood.
Christiana Athena-Blackwell, Homeowner:
Two days before, we were having a dance party on this block.
Walker Blackwell , Homeowner: Yes, we had like a little block party.
Christiana Athena-Blackwell:
The Fourth of July with a live band and everybody in the neighborhood out having food. It was just like this is the most ideal place.
William Brangham:
It sounds dreamy.
Walker Blackwell :
It’s sounds dreamy. Like, this is the most ideal area. And so that’s gone.
Woman:
Tonight, areas of the Northeast are reeling from storm damage.
William Brangham:
On July 10, 2024, the remnants of Tropical Storm Beryl dumped six inches of rain over this area in just a few hours. Huge volumes of water, uprooted trees and mountains of dirt barreled down the Great Brook before crashing into the concrete bridge just above the Heartbreak, creating a logjam for the floodwaters.
Christiana Athena-Blackwell:
Probably, in less than two minutes, we got out of here. I backed up, but the water was rushing.
William Brangham:
Oh, my gosh.
Christiana Athena-Blackwell:
It was like — it was up to here by the time I had gathered…
William Brangham:
Above your knees.
Christiana Athena-Blackwell:
Yes.
(Crosstalk)
Walker Blackwell :
Yes. And That broke and that took out the Heartbreak.
William Brangham:
Miraculously, everyone in the building made it out that night.
McBride and his partner were on a road trip the night of the storm. His housemate called him with the shocking news.
Jake McBride:
He said: “The house is gone.”
I said: “What do you mean the house is gone?” And he says: “It’s just gone. The whole thing’s gone.”
William Brangham:
That devastating flood hit Plainfield exactly one year after another deluge.
Man:
And the news this morning is not good in Vermont, a disaster there.
Man:
Some of the worst flooding in nearly 100 years.
Woman:
It caused tens of millions of dollars in damage.
William Brangham:
Two so-called hundred year events in consecutive years. In all, 39 homes in the village were lost, making dozens of families homeless in an already tight housing market; 11 percent of the village’s tax base was washed away.
Arion Thiboumery, Owner, Heartbreak Hotel:
It’s sort of like frozen in time a little bit here, frozen in disaster.
William Brangham:
Arion Thiboumery bought the Heartbreak in 2021. After the first flood two years ago, he thought it was still a smart investment.
Arion Thiboumery:
And my thinking at that time is like, OK, climate change is real. This is happening. The 100-year flood is now going to be the 10-year flood. And then the 2024 flood came. And, to me, it was like we live in a whole new world. Kind of all bets are off. Nobody should be living in the floodplain.
William Brangham:
Grappling with this whole new world led Thiboumery and a handful of other volunteers to try and chart a new path forward on higher ground.
Arion Thiboumery:
It’s like kind of a nice view over the whole thing.
William Brangham:
Yes.
The village would purchase about 24 acres of private land on this hillside and use federal disaster assistance to develop and sell the lots for mostly affordable housing.
Arion Thiboumery:
And this spot is in the village on higher ground. We have municipal water and sewer, power lines, data. Everything runs right there. We bring it right up to this property. We essentially are putting a new neighborhood on a hill that’s already in town on 40-feet higher elevation, clearly out of the floodplain.
And there’s one-time federal money that’s been sent to the state of Vermont targeting our county. We are really ready to go and move this forward.
William Brangham:
As straightforward is that sounds, the devil has been in the details.
man:
My favorite housing development in Plainfield, but not on this land, not at this density, and not at this cost.
William Brangham:
On a recent rainy evening, locals filled the village’s old opera house for what was, at times, a tense meeting about the plan.
Woman (through interpretor):
All of you, be respectful and kind to us. Just because we disagree with this doesn’t mean we’re bad people.
William Brangham:
At issue, should the local board apply for that federal disaster money? If they got it, it would pay for almost all the estimated $9.3 million it would cost to lay out the site and ready the lots for sale.
Woman:
I grew up with the understanding that, if I worked, I would be able to afford housing. And probably for the better part of 20 years, I have been seeking long-term housing in this area.
William Brangham:
While most seem to agree with that broader goal, critics are concerned about the number of lots being proposed, the overall cost of the plan, and the potential financial risk the village is taking on.
man:
I have concerns about the long-term costs.
Woman:
I really think we’re cramming too many lots on this land.
Woman:
Don’t take all of this money as if it’s free to spend. Run your books like we have to run ours, because we can’t afford to be taxed anymore in this town.
Michael Birnbaum, Opposes Expansion Project:
Sure, it’s a good idea to replenish our housing stock. We want that. But why would the town want to risk its credit rating, its taxpayers being able to pay their taxes and stay in their homes?
William Brangham:
Michael Birnbaum is one of those critics.
Michael Birnbaum:
I studied forestry, anthropology.
William Brangham:
We talked on the grounds of the now-defunct Goddard College in Plainfield. A developer bought the property and wants to turn it into rental housing. Birnbaum agrees that’s a simpler fix than the town’s idea.
Michael Birnbaum:
There are lots of possibilities for more housing. Why are all of our eggs in this basket and why is the town taking that risk, instead of somebody whose business is to take that risk?
William Brangham:
Supporters of the plan worry that a private developer in search of profit will price too many locals out, and while new housing at the college is welcome they say their community needs an all-of-the-above approach.
Arion Thiboumery:
We have diminishing enrollment in our schools. We have an aging population. We’re actually fortunate to be a town that young people want to move to, but are having trouble finding housing. So having here, we’re talking about homeownership, which is different than rental housing. But we need all of it.
William Brangham:
Vermont has one of the highest homeless rates in the country and its Republican governor says the state needs 40,000 additional housing units by 2030 in a state of just 648,000 people.
He and the Democratic state legislature have recently taken steps to ease some building restrictions.
Woman:
If we do nothing, our taxes are going up.
William Brangham:
But ultimately what gets built and how has to be hammered out at the local level between neighbors and communities like this one.
Michael Birnbaum:
I think there were some people who were openly derisive of our points of view. They either accused us of NIMBYism or fear.
William Brangham:
That you’re afraid of change, you’re afraid of the new.
Michael Birnbaum:
Yes. That’s not at all what it is. We’re afraid of the risk to the town and inappropriate use of a particular piece of land. And that’s really different from saying, no, we don’t want growth.
Jake McBride:
There’s no perfect solution. I just want a solution, and I want to be able to work with my neighbors towards that, and I think that we’re so polarized right now that we’re not being terribly productive.
Christiana Athena-Blackwell:
We’re just in complete limbo right now.
William Brangham:
Yes.
Man:
And we just have to live like that.
Christiana Athena-Blackwell:
Just we don’t know what it’s going to look like.
William Brangham:
Back at their former dream home on the Great Brook, the Blackwells aren’t sure what they will do, but they support the new housing plan.
Walker Blackwell :
Our community was changed fundamentally and permanently in 30 minutes during the flood. And what we’re doing is simply restoring a little bit of what Plainfield was 30 minutes before all of that happened. I think it’s harder for people to accept a change that’s a choice than it is for people to accept a change that’s Mother Nature.
William Brangham:
Later that evening at the town meeting, the board voted unanimously to move ahead with the grant application. Even if they get the money, it is just one of many hurdles they will need to clear.
For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m William Brangham in Plainfield, Vermont.
