Killington's Island Day 7: Storm Stories

Our job today was to visually inspect each and every home in the East Mountain Road Area for the Killington Fire Department. They wanted to know if there was anyone is residence, to check for any visible damage to the property, was the road passable and if there was electricity. I am happy to report that while almost every home was visibly alright, many of the driveways and acess roads still remain either impassable or accessible only by ATV or foot. In other words, I walked a lot today.



Spoke with one gentleman who lived at the bottom of a side road from Rim Road where practically every single culvert had blown wide open. Knowing that this gentleman had a tiny kybota, one of the road crew brought him two tanks of deisel at the beginning of the week. "Here you go," he said, " Dig yourself out.". And dig himself out he has. He has rebuilt enough road for his ATV to get out onto East Mountain Road, rerouting the river that now runs through his road. All he asked for was more dirt and diesel. Hell Yeah!


A friend of ours was cruising around on his dirt bike, making his way to Woodstock to get a new chain for his chainsaw. Pretty sure thst he was enjoying his journey. Checking in with us, he described how loud all the water runoff was on Sunday afternoon. They could hear all the rocks scratching each other as they made it around his house (thanksfully) and down the hill toward Route 4. He and his girlfriend were so worried they were going to lose the house, but the mud created a kind of barrier forcing the water around. Like a clay dam.


He also told this story of a guy who had his motorcycles in a box out front...the water picked up the box and was boucing it around like a buoy on the ocean. While he could hear the bikes scatching against each other in the box, he feared for the damage to his beautiful babies...but they were totally fine! Except for all the scratching, the bikes started right up! Amazing :)


There are so many more stories like this - some friends of ours sat on their roof drinking vodka drinks while they watched their cars float down Rt 4 toward Woodstock. For the motorcycle, however, they waded through rapidly moving waist deep water to pull the bike up onto the deck and tied it on with an electrical cord. Post Irene: the bike came through without even a tarnish on the chrome. I had to shake my head as he was showing the BF his bike today. Small miracles everywhere.


Oh, and all the marking cones seem to be moving ever so slowly toward the middle of the road. The undermined sections of road are continuing to collapse. PLEASE be careful driving around - more and more pavement is collapsing and the cravasses are definately getting bigger - and so is our cairn in the middle of Bear Run! It is twice as big as it was on Sunday afternoon when we built it. They even rebuilt the road around the cairn!! We just couldn't stop laughing. It's the little things that make you smile :)



May You Find the Spirit of the Mountains Within You,
FemaleSkiBum :)

Location:Butler Rd,Killington,United States