On This Day in 1927: The Great Vermont Flood

The flooding in Vermont on November 3rd and 4th, 1927, remains the greatest natural disaster in Vermont history.

Widespread devastation occurred, destroying countless homes and buildings while sweeping away 1,285 bridges across the state as well as hundreds of miles of roads and railroad tracks. Eighty-four lives were lost to the flood, including that of S. Hollister Jackson, the Vermont Lieutenant Governor at the time. Damages totaled between $30-35 million ($441-515 million in 2021 USD).

Preceding the November floods was an unusually wet October, saturating the soil to the edge of its limits. Across the entire state, October rainfall was 150 percent that of average, with some parts of northern and central Vermont recording between 200 to 300 percent of normal. Any further rainfall would runoff directly into the river, posing severe flood threats to the state. When the rains began in early November, that exact scenario came to pass.

Rain began the day before the flooding commenced, on November 2nd. The rain was initiated by a cold front moving into the region from the west, continuing at a light intensity overnight until the morning of November 3rd. A low-pressure system associated with the remnants of a tropical storm had been moving up the east coast, creating a strong southeast flow. As the moist air was forced upwards by the Green Mountains, heavy rains began to pour along and east of the mountain range. While hourly rain rates measured in Northfield, Vt., only maxed out at 0.62 inches, the total rainfall was devastating, with 4 inches common across the state from November 1-6 and some of the locally highest amounts nearing 10 to 15 inches.

While the destruction was felt across the state, the hardest hit zone was likely the Winooski Valley. Much of the population lived in that area, and because of the devastation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began constructing three flood retention reservoirs and dams in the Winooski River basin. In 1949, the Union Village Reservoir and dam on the Ompompanoosuc River was finished, and by the early 1960’s, four other reservoir/dam combos finished construction in the Connecticut River basin.

The historic flooding of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 brought powerful floods to Vermont, but the extent of the 1927 floods keeps it as the worst natural disaster in Vermont history. Without the investments made to reservoirs and damming, Irene could have had even deadlier impacts, proving the need to learn from history.

Credit: National Weather Service
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Story Image: Bellow Falls Station flooding in 1927 via Wikimedia Commons