From disaster to hope: A Vermont family thankful for community support after flood destroyed home

PEACHAM, Vt. (AP) — The last thing John and Jenny Mackenzie saw as they fled their Vermont home with their daughters, dog and two guinea pigs last summer was their cars upended and propelled away by rushing flood waters.

Minutes earlier they had abandoned their 19th-century wood-frame house as the remnants of Hurricane Beryl turned it into an island engulfed by surging flood waters, with trees slamming into it and water gushing at colossal speed into the basement and first floor.

“It was just like it was a horror movie at that point,” John Mackenzie said of the surreal scene on that July 10 night.

“We lost both of our vehicles, our home and our barn and at least half of our possessions,” Jenny Mackenzie said.

Since that terrifying storm when two people died swept away in vehicles, the Mackenzies, both teachers, and their twin daughters have been living temporarily in a friend's house. They have scrambled to figure out something permanent, a daunting task in a state with a housing shortage and when government programs to buy out flood-destroyed homes can take a year or more and are not guaranteed.

But four months after the devastating loss, the family is writing a new chapter.

Donations from friends, family and others in their community have helped the Mackenzies find a new house in time for Thanksgiving, giving them hope amid ongoing challenges. The Associated Press is following them through their recovery.

Community rallies to help flood-stricken family

The Mackenzies quickly learned how much support they had.

Two days after the storm, dozens of volunteers showed up to help salvage what they could. Floodwaters had reduced the lawn to a muddy chasm; their septic system was destroyed.

In the rain, volunteers carried furniture and other belongings across a gulch to waiting all-terrain vehicles, which drove them on dirt roads to the village where the family is staying.

Friends set up an online fundraising page that has raised over $160,000. Over 950 donations have come in, some from former students, ranging from $5 to $10,000.

“It’s unbelievable the way that we were supported and we’ve been trying to find ways to communicate that gratitude,” said John Mackenzie, 49.

The donations allowed them to buy used vehicles, keep teaching and carry on with life, his 50-year-old wife said. As much as the money, it means a lot that people were thinking about them, she said.

“It doesn’t make them whole, all of the damage that they experienced, but yes that’s an amazing amount and I think it speaks to the community that’s around them and how well loved they are,” said Cara Robechek, who helped start the fundraising effort.

“They’re both teachers. They are sort of deeply embedded in a lot of communities.”

An uncertain future

The Mackenzies owned their two-story house, built in 1840 with clapboard siding painted sage green, for 21 years. They raised their 16-year-old daughters, Lila and Kate, there.

“We’re already aware that for us losing the home after 21 years is huge but this is the only home they ever knew,” John Mackenzie said of their girls. “We want to recreate a new home.”

The Mackenzies applied for a buyout and wanted to stay in Peacham, but housing costs in the town of 700 have soared and are out of reach, they said.

As of this fall, about 250 households have applied for buyouts, most both federally and state funded, from the severe flooding in early July and later that month that hit parts of central and northern Vermont, according to the state.

Once a buyout application is complete, it can sit in review with the Federal Emergency Management Agency for up to a year, said Stephanie Smith, the state hazard mitigation officer with Vermont Emergency Management.

The Mackenzies got another setback last week when they learned their property may not be eligible for a FEMA buyout, although Smith said Monday the state is working to make it eligible. The Mackenzies have to provide more detailed information, including receipts from repair work done after a previous flood. But they lost much of that paperwork in this summer's storm, Jenny Mackenzie said.

If FEMA funding falls through, Smith said the state will review the Mackenzies' case for a state buyout program early next year.

“The reality is that we won’t be able to afford to stay in this house that we’ve bought unless that buyout goes through,” Jenny Mackenzie said.

Climate change fuels stronger storms

The flooding came exactly a year after catastrophic floods hit areas of rural, mountainous Vermont, including the capital, Montpelier. Some northern communities were pummeled twice by the severe flash flooding this July.

Experts say Vermont could see more frequent catastrophic events like these, with climate change fueling stronger storms and striking Vermont villages situated along the Green Mountains' rivers and streams.

Donations help family buy a new home

Unable to find an affordable house in Peacham, the Mackenzies made the difficult decision to look elsewhere. In late September, they put down an offer on a house in Craftsbury, about 30 miles away. The commute to St. Johnsbury Academy where they both teach English and their daughters go to school is about 50 minutes compared to the 20 minutes they used to drive. They plan to move in mid-winter.

The white clapboard farmhouse with a red door — also built in 1840 — reminds them of their Peacham home.

After the sale closed, Jenny Mackenzie bought a trowel — “I didn't have one anymore,” she said — and planted about 100 daffodils that a friend rescued from the family's flooded house. Another friend gave her more. Jenny Mackenzie usually plants 500 a year.

“It felt good to get in a few because that will really make us feel like home," she said as their German shorthaired pointer, Hester, ran around her new grounds.

A friend is reupholstering their flood-damaged rocking chairs and couch. The family's antique piano, built in 1895, could not be saved; it's the only thing remaining at the old house.

The Mackenzies would not be where they are without the financial and other support of friends and family.

“There’s no way we could have done that prior to a buyout," Jenny Mackenzie said of paying off the mortgage on the old house, as well as a government loan from previous flood damage, and then buying a new house. “Even now it’s financially precarious.”

The family has learned through this experience to open themselves up to everything — to suggestions about where they might relocate, to kindness, to community, John Mackenzie said.

There were moments, initially, when it was hard to accept that kind of generosity and the loss of some privacy around money, he said. But it’s helped to know he would donate if there were another family in need, and he and his wife are incredibly grateful.

“It’s kind of completely broke us open,” he said.