By james art 
After years of a heavy flood, employees and residents of Vermont restore the floodplains, strengthen the infrastructure and buy homes at risk to adapt to the future of more extreme rainfall.
Jonathan Mingle reports on Yale Environment 360.
Briefly:
- Vermont monitors a sharp rise in extreme rainfall, with the cities prone to floods suffered repeatedly destroying. Officials predict that such events will increase by 52% in the northeast until 2100.
- The state has launched initiatives such as the Law on Flood Safety and the River Program to limit developmental development in flood areas, upgrade infrastructure and provide federal funding for the purchase and softening of floods.
- Many communities are faced with a difficult choice because the effective prevention of floods means removing homes and infrastructure from vulnerable areas, worsening already a strict residential market.
Key quote:
“We can be sacrifices and go to the ground and cry for it. Or we can think what we can do. And the obvious answer in Vermont is to get out of the river path. “
– Arion Thiboumery, owner of Plainfield housing and FEMA Redemption Coordinator
Why it matters:
The challenges of Vermont’s floods reflect those facing many regions, as climate change leads to more large rainfall and increasing disaster costs. Adaptation will require major changes in infrastructure, community planning and difficult solutions to where people can safely live.
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