Lyndonville- The Northeast Kingdom Trailer Park in Lyndonville was flooded Thursday night. The cause of this flooding was because of an ice-jam. These floods happen when ice breaks up creating a dam which blocks the river or stream it is in. This causes water to become backed up and flood into the roadway.
This happened last night, when the water was blocked by the ice-jams. The water flooded cars and houses on Marble Lane. The flooding is the second time in less then a month, that it has happened on Marble Lane. This time the water levels were a lot lower, but that does not mean that it did not cause any damage.
"This is not as bad as two weeks ago," said homeowner Brian Lafferty, "The water is shallower by two feet, but the cause is the same. It is being cause by an ice-jam."
According to Lafferty, VTrans is responsible for breaking up the ice, but as of right now, they have not done anything.
Justin Smith, Lyndon's Municipal Administrator, echoed something similar saying, "It's a coordinated effort probably. I would say in most cases the state has the equipment needed to do the breaking up of the ice jams."
Smith states there have been efforts to reduce the risk of flooding at the trailer park following the flooding back in 2002.
"They've done work in the last ten years to raise the number of lots within the park," said Smith, "It's changed from when we had our big flooding events back in 2002, when most of the park was at a lower elevation."
However, raising the roads on which the trailer park sit upon would be a different story according to Smith.
"We have identified this intersection as an intersection that we would like to see fixed because it does flood regularly," said Smith, "It has it's own set of problems due to the elevation. You would have to change all three roads to make that work because it does tilt from side to the other."
Lyndon has a number areas around town which are known as flood hazard areas. The town keeps an eye on these specific areas throughout the year, to make sure that they remain safe. Both Marble Lane and Main Street are not on the list of flood hazard areas according to the Lyndon Town Plan.
Lyndon has major concerns for flooding in the past, besides the flooding in 2002. The town has six disaster declarations form the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Most recently, from the year 2011, the town has around $421,090 in public assistance damages to date from FEMA.