Calls for search and rescue missions continued, as residents and business owners started assessing damage, fueling an anxious, unsettled mood.
Residents in Barre, Vt., surveyed the damage to their streets on Tuesday. The two-day storm dumped more than eight inches of rain on some parts of the state.Credit…Hilary Swift for The New York Times
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Jenna Russell reported from Montpelier and Berlin, Vt.
As floodwaters began to ebb on Tuesday, and Vermonters reckoned with the devastation of a record-breaking storm, shock mixed with a growing sense of dread at the long recovery ahead — and with a lingering uneasiness that more losses might yet be uncovered.
As residents began to sift through ruined businesses, and hundreds of people sought temporary housing away from flooded homes, calls for search and rescue missions continued up and down the state, fueling an anxious, unsettled mood.
“It was an apocalyptic feeling,” said Dylan Woodrow, 29, of Montpelier, who paddled his kayak through more than three feet of water there on Tuesday, asking people stranded in second-floor apartments if they needed help.
Throughout the day, warnings that the nearby Wrightsville Dam might reach capacity, and require the release of more water, kept Mr. Woodrow and other residents of Montpelier, the state capitol, on edge. Reported to be six feet below the dam’s capacity in the early morning, the water had crept to one foot below by afternoon, the Vermont Department of Emergency Management said in a statement.
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