Robby Porter: The bear, the flood and the powerhouse

Commentaries are opinion pieces contributed by readers and newsmakers. VTDigger strives to publish a variety of views from a broad range of Vermonters. Commentaries give voice to community members and do not represent VTDigger’s views. To submit a commentary, follow the instructions here.

This commentary is by Robby Porter of East Montpelier, a self-employed woodworker and owner of small hydroelectric projects, and the author of “Doodlebug, A Road Trip Journal” and “Concrete and Culture,” a book of personal essays.

The bear was my first flood lesson.

A couple of weeks before the flood, just at dusk, I went out to hang some towels on the clothesline. I mistook rustling leaves in the corner of the garden for our black dog. When my flashlight revealed the round, furry ears of a large bear, I assumed that it had climbed over the garden fence and was headed toward our compost bin.

Assumptions are dangerous. After 58 years of life, this is a lesson I have repeatedly failed to learn.

The compost bin was between me and the bear and as it moved toward the compost bin and also toward me, I pulled my phone out of my pocket. My one-handed phone camera skills are about what you would expect from a man my age and, in my defense, I was also juggling the flashlight with my other hand and trying to keep one eye on the bear, which kept coming directly toward me without diverting toward the compost. Hmmm….

The photo opportunity was getting better and better but some danger signals started flashing in my brain.

The bear continued its course but changed from a tentative walk to a determined trot. I decided that it would be prudent to exit the garden through the gate about 10 feet behind me. In the one second it took me to get to the gate, the bear covered the 40 or 50 feet between us, ran right over the exact spot where I had been standing and through an opening in the garden fence.

Apparently the bear had entered the garden through the opening in the fence, felt trapped when I came into the garden and thought that the only way to leave was the same way it had come in.

The bear meant me no harm, but it would have rolled over me like a dump truck running over a woodchuck. Luckily, because I am a cautious person, I had already moved out of the way.

When things like this happen, they happen fast, and unless you’ve trained for that specific situation the best you can hope for is to get lucky.

Our small hydroelectric plant flooded in 1984. That rather local flood event scoured long stretches of Route 12 down to bedrock between Worcester and Elmore and it flooded the powerhouse with 4 feet of water.

In 2011, Tropical Storm Irene brought the water level about a foot below the powerhouse floor. The microburst we experienced earlier that same summer brought the water right up to floor level.

After I bought the hydro plant in January 2011, I made some flood preparations. These seemed rather ridiculous and expensive at the time, but, like I said, I’m a cautious person and wanted to be prepared.

I bought a generator and a sump pump and cut a depression in the concrete floor for the sump pump. My plan was to barricade the double doors and foam-seal them shut. The regular human door I planned to block off 4 feet high so I could climb over and have access to the building to tend the pump. I assumed that the water wouldn’t get higher than 4 feet because that was as high as it got in the 1984 flood.

At 7 o’clock in the evening on July 10, the water reached the powerhouse floor and I put my plan in effect with the help of my son and his girlfriend.

It worked surprisingly well. The foam kept the doors quite waterproof. The two sump pumps (I’d bought another one as added insurance earlier that afternoon) were able to keep up with the leakage. As dark settled over us, my son and I were able to keep the pumps cleaned and the water down to an inch or two deep on the powerhouse floor even as it rose higher and higher outside.

But by midnight we were wading through chest-deep water to get inside the powerhouse and clean the pumps. The water raging over the dam 300 feet upstream made a constant, terrifying roar.

It occurred to me that the pressure on my hasty barricades was becoming tremendous and I started to fear that a sudden breach might knock one of us over and we would drown inside the dark powerhouse.

I also started thinking about the high-voltage lines over our heads. I assumed that the power had been knocked out, but I wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to find out by having the flood knock them into the water with us.

The same prudence that caused me to leave the garden signaled that it was time to give up the fight. We left around 1:30 a.m. The water was over the 4-foot mark by then and it wouldn’t stop for another 2 feet. It flooded the generators, the control system, all the switchgear and the tools.

Now, like so many other Vermonters, I’m sweeping up silt and trying to figure out what can be repaired and what needs to be replaced.

I’m not sure what lessons to take from this. My flood plan worked much better than I expected but it was based on the faulty assumption that the water would stop at 4 feet. All of our dangerous work was for naught because my assumption was bad.

Now I know the flood water can go 6 feet high, and that was caused by a rainstorm, not even a hurricane. So should I make a plan for 8-foot-deep water? Ten foot? It’s a question a lot of Vermonters are asking themselves. I don’t know the answer.

Here’s what I know for sure. I really regret not getting a picture of that bear. It would make this story so much cooler. So, work on your one-handed phone camera skills.

Have something to say? Submit a commentary here.

About us

Request a correction

Submit a tip

Pieces contributed by readers and newsmakers. VTDigger strives to publish a variety of views from a broad range of Vermonters. More by Opinion