VTrans outlines storm damage, rail impacts and plan to relocate Berlin garage after repeated floods

MONTPELIER, Jan. 16 — Jeremy Reed, chief engineer for the Vermont Agency of Transportation, and other agency officials briefed the House Transportation Committee on flood damage from storms in 2023 and 2024, the status of emergency and permanent repair projects, and steps to build resiliency.

Reed said the July 2023 storm produced what the agency called the most widespread flood damage in recent years. On the Federal Highway Emergency Relief side, agency estimates for the July 10 event included 421 projects with a combined damage estimate of about $179,000,000, broken into 352 emergency repairs ($74,000,000) and 69 permanent repairs ($105,000,000). On the FEMA side, staff reported an estimated $61,693,264.34 in damages across 72 projects, including railroad, rail-trail and agency facility work.

“On day 1, we're just out there just plugging a hole in the dam, literally,” Dan DeLabore, who works with the FEMA public-assistance process, said of immediate response work. He explained that small sites are sometimes combined into a single FEMA project worksheet when they are geographically close.

Why it matters: the agency must coordinate multiple funding streams — FHWA emergency relief, FEMA public assistance and state funds — to repair roads, bridges, rail…