Live Updates: Caledonia County flood warning remains, police name man who died in Peacham

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Jul 11, 2024 at 4:03 PM EDT

As the Lamoille River continued to rise into early Thursday afternoon, the people of Johnson Village were on edge.

Ron Andress and Melissa Wright live right where Main Street meets Railroad Street with Wright’s 80-year-old mother. They were flooded last summer and had to live in a motel room for a month while their apartment was being repaired.

Abagael Giles

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The Vermont public

Wright has been looking for another place to rent, but they can’t find anything they can afford.

“It’s very hard,” she said. “I’ve been trying to get out of here for months,” she said. “It’s just because of this fear of flooding that it’s so high. And there’s nothing, unless you can afford $2,500, $3,000 a month. The rent is outrageous.”

Wright has lived in Vermont for 36 years and raised her children here. But she said after three floods in one year, she will leave Vermont to escape the stress of living through another. This time, it looked like their apartment wouldn’t be flooded.

However, the old Sterling market flooded around noon.

David Camley lives on Main Street. The basement of the building where he lives was flooded last year. His apartment smelled of fuel oil for weeks afterwards.

Abagael Giles

/

The Vermont public

Camley said today was tough on the town, but he loves it there and wants to stay – although he misses Sterling Market a lot.

“Johnson is a nice place,” he said. “And people here come together when something like this happens. Everyone comes together and helps everyone, food or whatever they need.”

The Lamoille River in Johnson crested at about 1 p.m. Thursday at 17.82 feet.

That makes today’s flooding the fourth-highest water level on record, according to city officials.

River levels are higher than they were in December, but well below what they were during last July’s destructive floods.

The city will have pizza at Legion Field at 6 p.m. “Hopefully this is a small way to ease anxiety as the waters begin to recede,” officials said.