30-Frames: 24 hours in Rutland

It started with one of the most spectacular sunsets I'd ever seen. The dark orange and blood red sky though beautiful was the mask of an executioner. The true face of the beast was hidden in these moments and I watched dozens of cars pull over on the side of the Interstate to snap a photo of the surreal scene. I was driving the live truck back to the station after a live shot outside a Red Cross emergency shelter that had just been set up. I knew better than to shrug off what was coming.

Never having worked through a hurricane I sought out wisdom from another photog I knew was heading to the coast to cover the same storm. It was simple yet accurate advice, some of it I had already prepared for, others not. Either way I felt prepared. I walked into the office on Sunday with 5 gallons of water, cans of soup, stove,(and spoon), granola bars, caffeine drinks, and snacks.

Some people thought I was going a bit overboard on my planning seeing how I wasn't scheduled to spend more than 12 hours at work that day.
I loaded up the live truck and set off with a meteorologist as my navigator. It's the last time I'll let one of them guide my way to a storm. Not two hours after leaving the station we ran into a road that had been shut down. What locals described as a trouble free small creek had decided to go crazy. It took down trees and started dragging them across the road before rising up to a power transformer sending the town into darkness . Knowing this was the first of many road closures we would face we detoured to get into the city of Rutland.

Credit: Nick Johnston

I was told the Cold river had started hitting houses just south of the city so we made our way to find the scene. The owners of this home said they normally are unable to see the river located 200 yards behind their home and that it took five minutes for the river to overflow its banks and completely surround their home. This was early in the storm and the river had not yet crested, this may be one of the last photos of this home still standing.

We left this home heading back to Rutland but immediately ran into a problem. We had become cut off. The road we were on was washed out in one direction and blocked by downed power lines in the direction we had just come from not five minutes prior. Directions from a local put us turning right at a tree, go until you see the red barn...etc. I maneuvered through low hanging branches and swaying power lines until we finally crossed over the Cold river back onto Rt 7.

Our next step was to cut a mini PKG for the 630 then find a spot to set up for a live hit. We needed damage or mayhem or the most shocking thing we could find. It took us two blocks to find what we were looking for. A small neighborhood was flooded and a woman was standing in water up to her shoulders trying to clear the drain pipes with a pool broom. Dozens of people stopped to watch this woman try in vein to slow the rising water. Needless to say her attempts failed and the water continued to rise. I sat there with the dish on my truck up, bird tuned in, and about to set up the camera when I saw the water suddenly start coming toward the truck. It took only minutes for the newly formed lake to cover the 30 feet to the back tires of my truck I had no choice but to scrap the shot and bug out.

Nick and I set off in search of more flooding or damage. Word was that Killington had been hit hard so we headed that way. Back through the labyrinth of a flooded Rutland a right onto rt 4 and up the mountain. We would be there in a half hour or less. Except we wouldn't. In fact no one would be driving to Killington for days. We ran into the first of what I learned were several total wash outs in a 2 mile stretch of the highway. This one was about 1/4 mile long and a few hundred yards wide. I watched as blacktop was ripped from the road and pulled down river. Not only did the sheer size of the damage stun us, it made us realize... We were stuck in Rutland. We spent the next few hours driving around shooting more video and trying to find a way out. We found many people including a couple that we kept running into had the same problem as us. We shared info on which roads we had tried, where new flooding had occurred, where we were going next, and around 930 that night we were 100% certain there was no way out of the city. We set up one last live shot for the 11 and when that was over set out to find someplace dry to spend the night.

We were thankful to find the last available hotel room in the city and not have to spend the night in a shelter or the damp live truck. We checked in around midnight and had all our gear and clothing spread out across the room less than thirty minutes later to help dry it out. I set up a computer and got to editing tons of video to feed back to the station for the morning shows. At three in the morning we each took a shower, drank some coffee, and loaded back into the truck. We checked out of the hotel leaving the beds completely untouched, we had four hours of morning show to do live shots for.

Leaving the hotel we had to decide to either head north on 7 or south on 7. We chose south and less than a mile, and one police escort down the wrong side of the highway later, found a gaping hole in the road. With no risk of getting into a traffic accident I set up shop in the road and began a long morning of work.
The live shots went off well for us and a few hours later we got word from a DMV officer that a road had been opened out of town. That was our cue to get out of dodge.

I'll leave this post with a few photos of the day. Expect a few more Irene related posts over the next few days as I'm still living with this storm. We're all still living with her, she found us as a beautiful place and left us a disaster zone yet there is so much good that has come from this storm.