ADDISON COUNTY — An Oct. 16-17 Nor’easter pummeled Addison County with driving rain and wind gusts in excess of 40 miles per hour, causing particular damage in Lincoln and New Haven, each of which reported road washouts.
New Haven Town Administrator Aaron Brown reported on Thursday that flooding had closed River Road, from Route 7 to East Street. The community also closed South Street to through traffic, from Hunt Road to River Road.
“Please use caution on all roads as the rain and runoff are expected to continue until Friday, Oct. 18,” Brown stated in a message to the community.
Meanwhile, Lincoln officials reported Grimes Road to be impassable due to flooding and a bridge collapse.
“Other roads may be closed before the day’s end, as it is still raining hard and over four inches has already fallen in some areas,” Lincoln officials wrote in their message to the community on Thursday.
“Please use caution when travelling today and tonight, and remember to never drive through water on the road because you don’t know how deep the water will be and whether the road beneath will hold you or collapse,” reads the message. “It’s not worth your life.”
Mount Abraham Union High School released its Lincoln students early — at 11:20 a.m. — on Thursday, due to the storm. Students living in homes off Cobb Hill or Grimes Road were dropped off at the Lincoln Community School.
Weather-related mishaps weren’t limited to the northwestern quadrant of Addison County.
The Addison County firefighters Facebook page reported that the Vergennes Fire Department was sent to East Road in Panton for a trampoline in the yard that thrown up in the air by high winds, and took down power lines onto a car in a drive way.
In Middlebury town officials closed two roads due to flooding. Three Mile Bridge Road was closed from Route 7 to Shard Villa Road, and Blake Roy Road was closed from Three Mile Bridge Road south to the Middlebury town line.
Green Mountain Power on Thursday reported 30 of its crew had restored power to 25,000 customers statewide who had lose electricity during the storm. Another 4,800 GMP customers were still without power as the Addison Independent went to press on Friday. There were no reported lingering outages in Addison County as of Friday morning, according to the GMP website.