'I don't think it could have gotten any worse': Vermont town struggling as state's only community unreachable by ground crews

• Town of Wardsboro remains only area ground crews can't get to
• Homes and hundreds of roads and bridges washed away in Vermont
• Town of Prattsville, New York, nearly decimated by Hurricane's wind, rain and floods
• At least 46 people have died in the storm, most of them when trees crashed through roofs or onto cars
  

By Thomas Durante
Updated: 08:57 EDT, 31 August 2011

As treacherous floods continue to inundate the northeast, just one Vermont community is yet to be reached by ground rescue crews.

Vermont Emergency Management officials are hopeful that they can get to Wardsboro sometime this morning, as treacherous floodwaters continue to lash some areas of Vermont, wiping out homes and roadways.

Wardsboro Assistant Fire Chief Warner Manzke told the Brattleboro Reformer: 'I don’t think we could have gotten any worse. It’s going to be a long time before we’re back to normal.'

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Danger: Roadways have been washed away in Wardsboro, Vermont, the one community in the state unreachable by ground crews

Anita Rafael of Wardsboro told the paper: 'The central part of the village at the Route 100 and Main Street junction is all but cut off from the world. South Wardsboro is cut off from other sections of town because large sections of the South Wardsboro Road have washed out.'

Emergency Management spokesman Robert Stirewalt says the crude roads punched through to the isolated communities are not for general use, and only passable by emergency vehicles.

Helicopters from the Illinois National Guard are going to delivering supplies by air to communities that were cut off when flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Irene destroyed roads and bridges across the state.

The town of Prattsville, New York, in the Catskill Mountains has nearly been wiped off the map after Hurricane Irene tore through the area, taking out bridges and destroying homes.

This week, police helicopters were plucking stranded residents from homes and crowded shelters in towns that have crumbled by Hurricane Irene's wrath.

Irene's wrath: People stand where the Route 30 bridge over the West River in Jamaica, Vt., was swept away by floodwaters

Catastrophe, before and after: The Gilboa Dam in upstate New York was heavily damaged after Irene tore through the area.

Path of destruction: A once-quiet country road is now littered with the wreckage of homes in the New York town of Prattsville

Washout: Route 5, between Scotia and Schenectady, New York, is overrun by floodwaters from the Mohawk River

Marion Bender's home in Greenfield, Massachusetts, was completely flooded by the huge torrents that have swept across the region - and she and her husband have no flood insurance.

'We have got to start all over,' she said. 'We'll be all right.

The flooding has brought the death toll from hurricane Irene to 46 with whole towns swept away and the state of Vermont particularly badly affected.

The governor of Vermont has spoken of the devastation the small rural state suffered at the hands of Hurricane Irene and warned that further flooding and loss of life are likely.

Although floodwaters brought by Tropical Storm Irene began to recede on Monday in parts, hundreds of people remained trapped in communities which were cut off by raging floodwaters. It is still unclear how many are stranded.

Governor Peter Shumlin said: 'It's just devastating. Whole communities under water, businesses, homes, obviously roads and bridges, rail transportation infrastructure. We've lost farmers' crops. We're tough folks up here but Irene ... really hit us hard.

High water: Lock 8 in Rotterdam, New York, overflows, and a metal barge is crashed into the gates, on Monday during extensive flooding in the region as a result of Irene

Help: Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, second left, U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, second right and Brattleboro Town Manager Barbara Sondag tour areas in Brattleboro, Vermont damaged and flooded

Safe: Tom Chase waves atop of his friend's beach home in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene, in East Haven, Connecticut

'It's hard for us to know, frankly, haw many are stranded because it's hard for us to get into the communities we need to get to. It really packed a punch. It is probably the toughest flooding that we've seen in the state of Vermont in our history.

'We really need more resources but the President has been extraordinarily helpful'.

Highlighting the transportation problems, the Vermont National Guard had to travel through neighbouring Massachusetts to get rescue crews to the small, cut-off town of Wilmington, the governor said.

Images of the flooding showed normally tranquil streams pouring through city streets and thrashing against buildings and bridges, including some of the state's iconic covered bridges. Four to six of the covered bridges were destroyed in the flooding, officials said.

From North Carolina to Maine, communities cleaned up and took stock of the uneven and hard-to-predict costs of a storm that spared the nation's biggest city a nightmare scenario, only to deliver a historic wallop to towns well inland.

Collapse: Another home destroyed by Tropical Storm Irene rests on the beach in East Haven, Connecticut

Gushing: Major flooding along the Delaware River in New Jersey and Pennsylvania has been one of the remnants of Irene, forcing evacuations along the low lying areas of the river

Timber: A tree brought down by Hurricane Irene uproots a sidewalk and blocks a neighbourhood street in Manasquan, New Jersey

In New York City, where people had braced for a disaster-movie scene of water swirling around skyscrapers, the subways and buses were up and running again in time for the Monday morning commute. And to the surprise of many New Yorkers, things went pretty smoothly.

In many cases, the moment of maximum danger arrived well after the storm had passed, as rainwater made its way into rivers and streams and turned them into torrents. Irene dumped up to 11 inches of rain on Vermont and more than 13 inches in parts of New York.

Torn apart: Route 4 in Mendon, Vermont is damaged as work crews evaluate their next move. It was just one of the hundreds of roads and infrastructures which were damaged over the weekend

President Barack Obama warned that the aftermath of the storm could be more painful than the storm itself but promised the government would do everything in its power to help people get back on their feet.

As the damage of the storm is estimated to cost between $7billion and $10billion, it is believed it will also help the economy as it will help create much-needed jobs.

Precarious: A Vermont home balances on the brink of collapse after it was nearly washed away by the floodwaters

Fire and water: Several homes already caught in flood-damaged areas caught fire yesterday in incidents involving downed wires and propane tanks

Roads become rivers: Streets of Asbury Park, New Jersey, are flooded after Hurricane Irene moved through the area on Sunday

Hundreds of Vermonters were told to leave their homes after Irene dumped several inches of rain on the landlocked state.

Video posted on Facebook showed a 141-year-old covered bridge in Rockingham swept away by the roiling, muddy Williams River. In another video, an empty car somersaulted down a river in Bennington.

'It's pretty fierce. I've never seen anything like it,' said Michelle Guevin, who spoke from a Brattleboro restaurant after leaving her home in nearby Newfane. She said the fast-moving Rock River was washing out the road to her house.

The high flood waters seemed to come as a surprise to a state where evacuations had not been made.

'We didn't know where the storm was going to hit,' Mark Bosma of the state's emergency agency said as floodwaters lapped around the command centre. 'Evacuations beforehand just weren't possible.'

Submerged: Andre Kozlov, 38, walks through his flooded basement after the pass of Hurricane Irene in Hoboken, New Jersey

Rivers roared in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In the Hudson Valley town of New Paltz, New York, so many people were gathering to watch a rising river that authorities banned alcohol sales and ordered people inside.

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