Vermont in top 10 states with most federal disaster declarations, new study says

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<img decoding="async" width="1200" height="801" data-attachment-id="587296" data-permalink="https://vtdigger.org/barre-flood-folo-3-20240712/" data-orig-file="https://vtdigger.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/barre-flood-folo-3-20240712.jpg" data-orig-size="2500,1669" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"4","credit":"Glenn Russell","camera":"NIKON D750","caption":"Workers from ReSource and the Montpelier Youth Conservation Corps clear mud out of a basement on Third Street in Barre on Friday, July 12, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger","created_timestamp":"1720811475","copyright":"Glenn Russell","focal_length":"70","iso":"100","shutter_speed":"0.004","title":"barre-flood-folo-3 20240712","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="barre-flood-folo-3 20240712" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" Workers from ReSource and the Montpelier Youth Conservation Corps clear mud out of a basement on Third Street in Barre on Friday, July 12, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger

" data-medium-file=" data-large-file=" tabindex="0" role="button" src=" alt="Several people are walking on a muddy path, carrying dirty buckets. They are wearing stained work clothes and boots. Trees and a truck are visible in the background." class="wp-image-587296" srcset=" 1200w, 300w, 125w, 768w, 1536w, 2048w, 1024w, 1568w, 2000w, 400w, 706w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px"/>Workers from ReSource and the Montpelier Youth Conservation Corps clear mud out of a basement on Third Street in Barre on Friday, July 12, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger Do natural calamities strike Vermont more often than other states?

Many Vermonters might say yes, recalling the storm just a few weeks ago, or casting their memory back to last summer’s floods, or to Tropical Storm Irene, among others.

A new report from a nonprofit research group indicates that they have good reason to believe that. It places Vermont in seventh place — tied with Kentucky and South Dakota — for most federal disaster declarations in the country due to extreme weather.

The report, from disaster prevention-focused group Rebuild by Design, looked at the number of major disaster declarations issued for each state due to natural catastrophes from 2011 to 2023. Such declarations free up federal funds for disaster recovery, and are usually requested by the state’s governor, assessed by Federal Emergency Management Agency officials, and then granted by the U.S. president.

FEMA’s database lists 20 major disaster declarations for Vermont during the study’s timeframe, the vast majority from severe storms leading to floods. That means that despite Vermont’s modest size — it ranks 45th in land area for states — only Arkansas, Iowa, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and California were issued more federal disaster declarations.

The report then spliced the data by county, because not all counties in a state are necessarily designated for assistance by a major disaster declaration. This further analysis found that Washington County was the second-most disaster-affected county in the country, tied with Floyd, Lawrence and Magoffin counties in Kentucky with 14 major disasters from 2011 to 2023.

Five more Vermont counties — Orange, Orleans, Chittenden, Essex and Lamoille — tied with several other counties for the fourth position, each having been impacted by 12 federal disaster declarations in that time. Addison and Franklin counties came in sixth, with 10 major disasters.

The study did not take into account any 2024 federal disaster declarations — even if they concerned events from 2023 — which includes the March 2 declaration for last December’s flooding, and the April 19 declaration for the winter storm in January.

Vermont has yet to submit a major disaster declaration request for the floods that struck the state earlier this month. According to Eric Forand, the director of Vermont Emergency Management, that’s because FEMA officials only finished assessing the damage last Saturday.

“Last summer we got it really quickly because FEMA was able to fly over. This year they brought boots on the ground, to see if we met the threshold. It’s not abnormal, it’s still within two weeks,” said Forand.

Now that FEMA’s preliminary assessments are over, Forand expects that the state will be ready to apply for a major disaster declaration this Wednesday.

“We’re looking at the data now, wrapping that application,” said Forand.

If the president issues the declaration, it would mean more federal disaster aid flowing to the state. From 2011 to 2023, Vermont received just over $400 million from FEMA, according to the study, and an additional $39.5 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That pencils out to about $684 for every Vermonter.

Still, natural calamities are expensive. Tropical Storm Irene alone caused nearly $750 million in damage, nearly double the sum-total of federal money Vermont received for all 20 of its major disaster declarations from 2011 to 2023.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the time period during which Washington County received 14 disaster declarations.

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