Montpelier Alerts Google Group

FEMA Meeting on new Floodplain Maps

ghallsm...@montpelier-vt.org (Gwendolyn Hallsmith) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 15:50:31 UT

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will hold four public
meetings as part of the process to adopt new Digital Flood Insurance Rate
Maps and Flood Insurance Studies prepared by FEMA and its mapping
contractors for communities in Rutland and Washington Counties.
The purpose of the meetings will be to review the new maps and discuss the

envisionMontpelier kick off event Saturday at the Farmer's Market

ghallsm...@montpelier-vt.org (Gwendolyn Hallsmith) — Thu, 17 May 2007 19:27:05 UT

Hello -
I want to invite you to participate in an exciting (and fun!) new project in
the City of Montpelier. The Planning Commission and the City Council are
working to develop a long-range plan for the city, and are asking all of the
people who live and work here to help us imagine what the city should be

Virus warning

gwe...@gmail.com (Gwendolyn Hallsmith) — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 19:08:31 UT

Dear Montpelier Alerts,
Several of you have brought to my attention (thank you!) that my address was
used earlier today to send a virus with a filename of SeX.mpg to the
Montpelier Alerts listserv. I apologize. I have disabled that address for
the time being, and I will disable this one as soon as I send this message,

Fw: SeX.mpg

ghallsm...@montpelier-vt.org (ghallsmith) — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 17:30:28 UT

Note: forwarded message attached.

No Flood Dance Party!

ghallsm...@montpelier-vt.org (Gwendolyn Hallsmith) — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:44:32 UT

No Flood Dance Party!It's time to celebrate! The City of Montpelier and the Montpelier Downtown Community Association invite you to kick the mud off your boots and welcome in spring with The No Flood Dance Party on Saturday, May 5th in the gym at Vermont College. The Dave Keller Band will have you on the dance floor from 7 to 10 pm. This is a FREE party to thank our community for the work everyone put in to flood preparations (though donations are always appreciated). Both children and adults are invited. The Black Door will be there with a cash bar. Green Up in the morning at City Hall from 9 to noon, then paint the town red in the evening at Vermont College!For more information on either Green Up Day or the No Flood Dance Party, contact Suzanne Hechmer at the Montpelier Downtown Community Association (MDCA) 223-9604 or direc...@mdca.org. Tell us more about your connection to the downtown by filling out a 5 minutet survey at: [link]

Wrap Up message

wfra...@montpelier-vt.org (William Fraser) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 21:13:16 UT

Thank you very much to the many of you who have sent such nice messages this way. I was trying to keep up and reply to all of them but have been overwhelmed with your kind thoughts last night and today. Believe me it means a lot to me personally and to all of us at the City to feel that we've been of some help.

ITS OVER - No Flood in 2007!!!

wfra...@montpelier-vt.org (William Fraser) — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 23:11:57 UT

We watched a massive amount of ice break free near the high school and flow on out past the Interstate Bridge. Thanks to great weather which melted out the ice perfectly and a channel opened by the crane and wastewater effluent the ice was able to move right out. It was a most impressive sight once it got rolling.

This situation should be over soon

wfra...@montpelier-vt.org (William Fraser) — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 18:24:19 UT

We expect the flooding situation to resolve itself one way or the other within a day or two, possibly even today.
The warming temperatures continue to melt and weaken the ice in the river. With the exception of a small jam of broken ice near Gallison Hill Road, all the upstream ice is beginning to break up and move down the river. It is located now between the Granite St Bridge and the Main Street Bridge. It is moving slowly since the river level is low. I observed an open channel of water opening up ahead of this ice, stretching out beyond the Hunger Mtn Co-op.

Things look good today.

wfra...@montpelier-vt.org (William Fraser) — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:32:11 UT

As of noon time, things look good.
The ice on the river continues to melt and weaken. The jam near the Dog River has moved out and there is just open flowing water there now. The "leads" of open water continue to lengthen and widen.
There is still a lot of ice from the Main St bridge up to the Stevens Branch that needs to flow out. We don't have depth measurements on it this week but it appears to be weakening substantially.

Conditions look favorable today

wfra...@montpelier-vt.org (William Fraser) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 21:38:21 UT

Weather conditions seem to be in our favor. The recent warm weather appears to be weakening the ice and raising the temperature of the water in the river. It has not, however, resulted in a rise in river level which is excellent news. A breeze added to the warmth has caused a lot of snow to evaporate rather than melt and run off into the watershed.

Frequently Asked Questions

wfra...@montpelier-vt.org (William Fraser) — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:50:04 UT

We are getting many questions about this potential situation. I will address some of the more frequently asked questions and comments.
1) Why doesn't the city just break open or blast open the jam?
The use of the term "jam" may have created unintentional confusion. What presently exists is a mile long restriction of the river channel from about the Middlesex line to the confluence of the North Branch river. In this area, the river is frozen solid from top to bottom on both sides leaving only a very narrow channel for water to flow through. While this is technically called freeze up jam, it is not a jam with a single point of blockage. Therefore there is no one place to break open.

Tuesday Update

wfra...@montpelier-vt.org (William Fraser) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:37:07 UT

Holdiing Steady today, Alert for the end of the week.
The cold weather through the weekend will reach its low point overngiht. Its expected to potentially reach record lows for this time of year, possibly 10-15 degrees below zero. This has all served to tighten up the ice in the river and stabilize any movement that began last week.

Communication Tips

ghallsm...@montpelier-vt.org (Gwendolyn Hallsmith) — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 14:43:54 UT

Good morning!
Here are a couple of pointers for those of you who want to have as much communication as possible about the potential for flooding:
1) If you have a cell phone that receives text messages, we can add the e-mail address of the texting service to your phone (not the phone number) to this listserv. To get the e-mail address for your phone, contact your cell phone service provider. They typically look like this:

Status update March 16th

wfra...@montpelier-vt.org (William Fraser) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:32:41 UT

The best news was that we did not have a flood. The National Weather Service cancelled the flood watch for this area in the wee hours of this morning.

Yesterday, however, was a very tense day. Warming temperatures, rain fall and heavy snow melt lined up perfect conditions for ice break up and jamming. The two indicators we watch mostl closely ("rate of rise" - how fast the river is rising - and "stage" - the actual river level) were in perfect sync with the statistics from 1992. Fortunately the upstream ice was still thick enough and hard enough that it defied predictions and didn't break up. It was a very dicey situation for a long time.

3:30 PM - Not out of the woods yet

wfra...@montpelier-vt.org (William Fraser) — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 20:35:04 UT

While the apparent worse period (warm rain) is over and the ice sheets have held firm, we are still in a period of risk. The river continues to rise with projections of more water coming in. Therefore the risk of the ice sheets breaking up is still present. In addition, an ice jam on the Dog River (which caused some flooding in Berlin today) released and deposited a lot of ice into the Winooski creating a small jam there in the midst of our freeze up area. We are seeing some evidence of water back up as a result of this although nothing serious yet.