Winooski River Flooding from Irene

This was a short article written by a man from Waterbury named David Goodman, in which he describes his personal experience from Tropical Storm Irene. Goodman begins his article by describing his tight knit community of Waterbury, and how neighbor looked out for each other during the storm and when the Winooski washed through, while the nationally media focused mostly on New York City. His sons local elementary school was turned into a shelter for people who sought refugee from the flood waters.

Goodman then goes on to describe the recover effort and how the community came together. Sport teams from the local high school worked together to clean out people houses of mud and other debris. One resident of Randall Street commented "I don't even know the people that are working so hard to clean my house."

To conclude the article Goodman referenced the flood of 1927 that claimed  84 lives. Gleason Ayers was ten years old at the time of the flood, and experienced the power of the Winooski a second time. Gleason's words of advice for Goodman were to stop worrying about the future and take each day at a time, and to come together as a community, much like they were starting to do.