Vermont Woman Flees Catastrophic Floods In The Dark After Warning Text

A Vermont woman fled her home in the dark with her 11-year-old daughter and their two cats after learning that the Wrightsville Dam was only 6 feet away from spilling over and drastically worsening the floods in Montpelier, Vermont.

A long-duration rainstorm overwhelmed the area's creeks and rivers and pushed the Wrightsville Dam to its limits, severely flooding Vermont's capital. Water rose quickly, destroying roads and sparking evacuations. Some people felt they couldn't abandon their homes and businesses and chose to stay. Montpelier resident Jennifer Sassaman woke to loud alerts on her phone in the early morning hours on Tuesday. What she saw caused her to flee.

Only 6 feet of storage remained in the reservoir before the dam failed, which would worsen the already catastrophic floods in the area.

"I had to decide then what we were going to do," Sassaman told Newsweek.

Sassaman woke her daughter, grabbed the family's two cats and their laptops and left. Running on very little sleep, they arrived at her parent's house, in the nearby town of Calais, at 5:30 a.m.

Sassaman had been monitoring the situation since Monday afternoon, when the Winooski River, which typically abuts her backyard, began advancing toward the house. At that time, Sassaman still had power and water, and the river stopped rising after it reached halfway up her driveway. She decided to stay the night at home and monitored the water levels until 3 a.m. before succumbing to sleep.

She slept with her phone in her hand, just in case the situation grew dire.

Shortly after she went to sleep, Sassaman's phone alerted her to the dangerous levels at the Wrightsville Dam. The alert spurred her into action.

"Waking up to the text that the dam might fail and not knowing what that would mean for my safety and my kid's safety was very scary," she told Newsweek. "I had a brief moment where I thought, 'What do I do? Who do I ask about what to do?' And then I thought very clearly, 'No one. There is no one to call. Calm down and make a decision.' I took a breath and knew we had to go."

Sassaman said her goal was to get her daughter to higher ground before the floods worsened.

By Tuesday afternoon, most of the rain had stopped and Sassaman returned to Montpelier to check on her house. The water was starting to recede, and the family never lost power, although their basement is completely full of water.

"[The Wrightsville Dam] could still overflow, but at the moment, things are okay," she said.