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'It was everyone together' For Wardsboro in Windham County, overlooked by steep slopes of the Green Mountains, the Tropical Storm Irene flood of late summer evokes awe and pride awe, because it was shocking how quickly the Wardsboro Brook became a menacing, raging river, and pride because of how people worked together in the days after the deluge to make sure everyone was safe and to reconnect the tiny town of 900 to the outside world. The town is bisected by Vermont 100, which enters from the north, cuts west and exits southwesterly headed toward Dover. Undercut sections of the road quickly disappeared as the water rose on the morning of Aug. 28, and big culverts torn from their beds made other roads impassable. "It was a rapid, rapid onset of water," said town constable, and now FEMA coordinator, Duane Tompkins, whose work area in the town office is filled with color coded files, binders filled with photographs documenting the force of the water and sheaves of paper neatly organized into project after project of repairs to be done. Jackie Bedard, town clerk and treasurer, lost her house. Sunday, the brook was just about normal, she said. By 8:30, trees were sweeping by. Friends helped her move many of her things to safety, but they had little time. "We watched trees going by," said Lissa Hescock, who lives in Bucketville the center of Wardsboro just across the highway from the brook. "You could hear rocks tumbling through." On a gray, unseasonably warm day in early December, with low clouds obscuring the mountain tops, a tourist driving through Wardsboro might miss the signs of the flood. The highway is repaved, and highway workers had just replaced the guard rails. But along the banks of the brook, tangles of downed trees and patches of oddly clean soil where excavators have tidied up remind residents of the recent past. "They're still rebuilding the shoulders and repainting," Hescock said. Tompkins, who roughly estimates the big ticket flood damage at $1.5 million, said individuals also have big expenses for furnaces, septic tanks, mold clean ups and other losses basements, clothes, etc. A "tidal wave," a localized tsunami, swept across his own property, he said, 100 feet wide and 6 feet deep. He guesses the damage at $10,000. The town, he said, is still working the calculators to figure out next year's budget that job complicated by uncertain flood funding formulae from the state and from FEMA. Forgotton islandWardsboro, Tompkins said, was the last town to be reconnected to the outside after the storm and for a time found itself divided into 10 separate islands and "virtually forgotten" by the larger world. Even in good times, cell phone service is problematic, and after the storm residents were without electricity, the Internet, a food supply or clean water. A town notice dated Aug. 31, caught the moment. "Thanks to all who have been so helpful and kind for their common sense response to Lady Irene, 'no lady this,'" it read. "It has been neighbors helping neighbors and strangers since the onset." The notice went on to warn people that their garden vegetables shouldn't be eaten if they'd been exposed to contaminated water, to boil water and not to grill food inside. Few sat around waiting for official help. Plimpton and Fitzpatrick excavating companies got their equipment out at once, people recall. Plimpton dropped an I beam across a swirling canal of water that had trapped nine people in an isolated house. They were rescued. The two companies began creating temporary roads reconnecting the islands of the town. The 18 members of the volunteer fire department made sure elderly people or the bed ridden were safe and had food and water. The fire department couldn't reach the Bucketville island, the Hescocks said, and asked them to check on vulnerable neighbors. "They worked 18 hour days," Tompkins said. Unpaid. Working togetherMost people pitched in, but, as might be expected, not everyone. Andi Anderson, the postmaster in West Wardsboro, said that as the post office filled up with supplies "This place was wall to wall" a few people grabbed more than they should have, and in the days after the storm a number of vacation homes were burglarized "We did a vigilante on that." But Anderson and others say the overwhelming impulse of people was to work together and help each other. "Everyone bonded together," she said. "What one person didn't have, another person showed up with." The elementary school became an emergency shelter. Jan and Kip Chamberlain, at the General Store, donated $449 worth of food. A "huge" pork roast appeared at the firehouse for workers, and many other meals. Anderson said a second home owner from Connecticut, "an insurance guy," showed up with a truck load of water, baby wipes and other supplies. "Amazing," she said. "People no longer had grudges or were enemies," Tompkins said, "for a week. No one had an agenda. Everyone was working together. You gained a better perspective of people." Will one person be named hero of the year? No, he said. "It was everyone together. "Everyone came out of their hidden shells," Anderson said. "I'm afraid they're going back again." She said she found out the Tuesday after Irene struck that the town's mail was in Brattleboro and, with Vermont 9 out, she used the Ames Hill Road to pick it up (and West Dover's and Marlboro's, as well) a four hour trip. It was Wednesday night, several days after the storm, she said, that the National Guard appeared, showing up suddenly with "40 pieces of equipment." Crowded quartersThe Hescocks, who normally live by themselves, said they ended up with 13 people crowding into the house for four days, like an extended Thanksgiving without much food. The kids, Lissa Hescock said, had ice cream for breakfast and learned to toast bread over a gas burner on the stove.