Digging out after a storm

Heavy rains and flooding that washed out streets, businesses and homes in Vermont last week also left one NeighborWorks network organization scrambling to rehouse residents after two buildings were damaged by flooding. New York and the Hudson Valley also saw the effects of extreme rain, though network organizations there reported less damage, says Joanie Straussman Brandon, NeighborWorks America's regional vice president of the Northeast Region. 

"When something like this happens, we immediately want to see how we can help," says Straussman Brandon. "That's our automatic response. It's very painful when one of our network members is suddenly faced with this level of devastation and loss." 

And while contending with the aftermath of a disaster, Colette Pozzo, NeighborWorks' vice president of Field Operations, says, "NeighborWorks network organizations know that when disasters strike, they're being called and approached for help. The community often turns to them first." 

Schuyler Anderson, chief financial and operating officer at Downstreet Housing and Community Development, says his Vermont community is still adjusting to the new landscape after the flooding, and still wearing boots to work. 

With something like a hurricane, you often know it's coming, Anderson says. "For this storm we heard rain was predicted, but it wasn't a storm with a name. Then we heard it was going to be really big. And it just kept raining. We were responding on the spot." 

The water washed out much of Main Street and the downtown area in Montpelier, he says. At one property, residents in 14 apartments were stranded on the second and third floors when the commercial space beneath them filled with water. A two-building complex, home to 23 families, was condemned by the city for flood damage and had to be evacuated the day the water receded, he added. Some of the residents who lived there had moved in after coming out of homelessness. 

"People had to grab as much as they could and go," says Anderson, whose organization manages 30 complexes with over 500 apartment homes. "We tried to connect with partners and find places they could stay. If we'd had another day or two to prepare, we could have offered more." 

Anderson says the staff of 33 has been working, answering calls, and helping with clean-up. The maintenance crew has been pumping out basements. Their first concern, he says, is for the residents, and the organization has started a resident support fund, listed on their website along with other flood and emergency resources. 

"I've been through other national disasters in my life in other places," Anderson says. "One thing that's awesome is how people come together." That's been happening here, too. "Our partners have been reaching out. Everyone is offering to dig mud out of basements. That's the silver lining: How much love and compassion is in the community." 

Windham & Windsor Housing Trust, also in Vermont, saw a few properties sustain damage, though the office in Brattleboro was away from the impact, says CEO Elizabeth Bridgewater. Black River Overlook, a community of 22 rental homes in the hard-hit town of Ludlow, sits along the Black River and is accessible by a small bridge. "The road to the bridge was completely washed out, stranding residents for several days," Bridgewater says. Fortunately, "the property itself sits at a relatively high elevation, so the residents were spared the awful flooding that so many other Vermonters experienced."  

The well and water system that serves the property is located closer to the river and was fully submerged. Most of the other impact was to the road and the parking lot. "WWHT's property management company accessed the property using all-terrain vehicles through the back woods to check on the residents, deliver potable water and assess the damage to the road, the well and systems," Bridgewater says. In the days since the flooding, the town has removed rubble from the washed out road and regraded it with gravel until more permanent repairs can be made. The water system has been restored, but is undergoing further testing.  

Proctorsville, also near the Black River, houses some of WWHT's shared equity condos. Homeowners there experienced severe flooding during Tropical Storm Irene. It wasn't as bad this time, Bridgewater says, but the building did take on some water. Outside the building, soil was severely eroded and the sidewalks were badly damaged. The Housing Trust doesn't own the land on which the condos are built, but the nonprofit is providing support to residents as they maneuver through the storm's aftermath. 

In 2005, NeighborWorks established a disaster relief fund, driven by the need to provide more immediate relief to residents after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. Today, NeighborWorks has distributed more than $1 million in disaster relief funding and grants to NeighborWorks network organizations and other housing and community development organizations impacted by disasters.  

Straussman Brandon says NeighborWorks will be sending funds to NeighborWorks network organizations in Vermont. NeighborWorks also distributed funds in Kentucky in September after storms in the Southeast.

"This was a shock," Straussman Brandon says. "It's been years and years since something of this magnitude happened in Vermont."  

But it has happened with more frequency in other places. As of July 1 – before the Northeast storm – there have been a dozen weather and climate disasters in the U.S. this year generating at least a billion dollars in damages. Climate events have ranged from storms to tornadoes to extreme heat. On Tuesday, Phoenix had clocked 19 days in a row with temperatures higher than 110 degrees. 

Affordable housing and community development leaders are working to prepare for such extremes through climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience. Some have added climate resiliency centers to their properties. In New York, network organizations are connecting clients to a new program to help with flood mitigation. 

To help community development organizations learn more about this subject, NeighborWorks will host a symposium: Climate Resiliency: Fostering Wealth, Health and Sustainability in Communities of Color, on Aug. 23 at the NeighborWorks Training Institute in Chicago. 

"We want to help community developers to understand the latest opportunities in the field and learn about the latest resources available to organizations," says Cormac Molloy, senior manager of Curriculum & Training at NeighborWorks America. "These environmental events are not going away, and we want to make sure those of us who work in affordable housing have the tools to face them."