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Explore our latest coverage of environmental issues, climate change and more.

Greene: Wilmington Five Years Later

For Lisa Sullivan, owner of Bartleby’s Books in Wilmington, there was no choice about whether to rebuild after TS Irene. She and her husband own the building, so they were going to stay.

She says the community pitched in to help clear out the inventory destroyed by the flood so renovation could begin, and they had FEMA flood insurance, which covered 35% of the damage. Low interest VEDA loans required fairly simple paperwork, and the money came through quickly - another plus. That Sullivan’s husband is a builder was, of course a huge help.

They took preventive measures like raising the windows on the first floor and replacing the old boiler with one on a raised platform. Now, Sullivan says, things feel like normal.

The storm took Beth Leggiere’s wool inventory from her store, Handknits, and cats-cradled it through the trees downtown. It also submerged her computer, so it took a few days to cancel the sales that couldn’t be fulfilled. She had to tear down her website as well as physically relocate to a Rte 100 location a mile out of town.

But she missed the daily foot traffic in the center of the village. So when her children started school in Brattleboro, she began looking at retail spaces there, finally settling on the Elliot St. location she’d now been in for 22 months. She’d be reluctant to locate on a floodplain again.

At the time of the flood, the brick Parmelee and Howe building on Wilmington's Main Street held a clothing store and coffee shop. Right after the storm, the damage was so great that there was talk of razing the whole edifice, but the Wilmington Fund stepped in and purchased the site. Now the new restaurant, the Cask and Kiln, sits in the heart of the village.

The build-out took two years from purchase, with special care taken to preserve as many details of the original building as possible. The new owners were living in the area at the time, and helped with the clean up. The destruction was heart breaking, but the spirit of volunteers coming together to do the work was uplifting and convinced them to make the investment.

Driving through Wilmington now, Irene’s fury is no longer visible. The rebuilding is thoughtful and precautions have been taken.

But some residents, like Beth Leggiere, still worry when it rains, and find it hard to look at recent pictures from Louisiana - because, after all, you can never completely flood-proof a town.

Stephanie Greene is a free-lance writer now living with her husband and sons on the family farm in Windham County.
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