Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship, for the Montpelier Bridge
Almost three years have passed since the July 2023 flooding in Central Vermont. But for some of the homeowners affected, time has stood still.
Water filled basements, then first floors. It climbed four feet up kitchen counters and swallowed furniture whole. Stagnant river water and “flood mud” covered belongings, leaving behind a stench that lingered long after the water receded.
Now, three years later, the question is no longer just what happened but where people ended up. For those who lived through it, recovery has taken very different shapes.
It came down to two choices: accept a buyout from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and relocate, or stay and rebuild — often by elevating their homes above future flood levels. Each came with tradeoffs, requiring time, money and emotional endurance.
“We had to make massive decisions with virtually no information,” said Lisa Edson Neveu, a Montpelier homeowner who chose to elevate her house.
“The hardest part was so many unknowns for so long,” said Mary Zentara, who took the FEMA buyout.
In the end, each homeowner chose a different path forward.
Mary Zentara
When Mary Zentara first returned to her State Street home after the flood, the damage was overwhelming. She had to tear out the floorboards and sheetrock to dry everything out.
“It was down to studs… there was dirt in the kitchen,” she said. Her home was ultimately deemed “substantially damaged” by the city of Montpelier.
Today, the house has had a “Notice of Demolition” sign posted on its front for several months.
Zentara chose the FEMA buyout route. A decision that offered a way out, but not a quick one. The application process alone didn’t begin until the spring of 2024, more than six months after the flood. In the months between, she relied on FEMA for temporary support, including rental assistance, which led her to move four times.
Progress was slow and it took months for her application to be approved, followed by additional steps such as a home appraisal to determine the payout. She didn’t learn the value of her home until the spring of 2025.
However, “the FEMA buyout allowed me to start over,” she said.
Earlier this year, Zentara closed on a new home in Calais, though the FEMA check didn’t fully cover the cost of her new mortgage. The interest rate on the mortgage is twice her previous rate.
“I’m thrilled to have a place called home again that’s in a safe location, where I can put down roots,” Zentara said.
Along the way, she found unexpected sources of strength. Community support played a significant role, as did her growing connection between other affected homeowners, such as Lisa Edson Neveu. Along with this, singing with a local group became a way to process the flood-related trauma.
“There’s a song we sing, ‘Grief and Praise,’ which has allowed me to be present with the grief and then also really lean into gratitude and joy as much as possible.”
“Recovery is possible,” she said. “It just takes time.”
Lisa Edson Neveu
For Lisa Edson Neveu, the decision to elevate her State Street home was rooted in stability for her family. Relocating wasn’t an option for her.
“My number one goal was keeping my boys in the school system,” Edson Neveu said.
But the path she chose has been long and isolating. Three years later and her house is still not finished. Currently under construction, with the intention of building above the flood guideline levels, her house stands on ten foot beams.
The work will be paid with a community resilience grant, part of a $3.5 million program approved by lawmakers in July 2024. Repairing everything inside the home will fall to Edson Neveu.
For the last six months, Edson Neveu has been living in an apartment while her home is under construction. She’s had to cover both rent and her mortgage — a financial strain that exceeds her take-home pay. That doesn’t include essential expenses like insurance, food or her son’s college tuition. Although a resiliency group helped with rent briefly at the beginning, that support was temporary. In the months since, she has continued to shoulder both payments on her own.
And perhaps even more difficult has been the uncertainty.
“Three years in and nowhere,” Edson Neveu said. “I still don’t know what the schedule is.”
The emotional toll lingers.
“It never leaves you… 24 hours a day,” she said. “How incredibly isolating it has been.”
Edson Neveu has spent time reflecting on the path she chose.
“If I knew absolutely everything I know now, then I should have boarded up the house and just taken the buyout,” she said.
But that reflection exists alongside the reality that she ultimately had to roll the dice and make the best decision she could with the information she had at the time.
Through it all, there were moments of resilience. Before her family had to vacate the home during construction, they found small yet intimate ways of making something livable out of an unfinished space.
With walls stripped to the studs, Edson Neveu and her sons improvised a game of corn-hole. To brighten the dark space, they hung twinkle lights around the beams. On Valentine’s Day, her son cut out paper hearts and nailed them to the exposed wood, trying to create moments of normalcy in a time of chaos.
“The world moves on,” she said. “And we’re still here.”
Jake Shattuck
Jake Shattuck’s first-ever home, located in the center of Woodbury across from the fire department on Vermont Route 14, is just 12 miles from his family business, Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks.
During the flood, water filled his basement to dangerous levels. The scene was surreal. Shattuck described the aftermath as “something straight out of a Stephen King novel,” with walls starting to crack, and dark water staring back at him filled with tires, a freezer and camping gear all down there floating.
Shattuck estimated it could cost about $100,000 to make his home livable again. But then he realized: Even if he fixed it, he’d still be in the flood zone.
His choice felt clear. He chose the buyout.
“There’s no sense in me fighting something like that,” he said.
Shattuck said he feels luckier than most. He was able to stay with family after the flood, until he was able to find a rental unit. He submitted evidence of his damaged property for reimbursement, but held off on reporting any of his personal items because he thought other people could use it more.
“I just knew that it was going to work out,” he said. “I knew the state was going to come through.”
For Shattuck, the FEMA buyout meant more than compensation; it meant closure.
He has since purchased a new home in Barre. The first thing he looked at was its flood risk.