Irene Hits Dot's
On August 28, 2011, Hurricane Irene took the town of Wilmington, VT by storm. As fun as weather puns may be, this storm devastated this small riverside town, flooding the downtown in a matter of hours. The flooding was so severe that much of the town was cut off from neighboring communities, with most pathways for residents to evacuate or rescuers to come in blocked by the storm. Nowhere was the flooding more extreme than the center of Wilmington’s downtown, the water rising almost a foot higher than it did in the last great flood they experienced in 1938.
The destruction caused by Irene was felt by the whole community. People lost their homes, their businesses, and in a few cases, their lives. Sitting smack dab in the center of the rubble that days ago was the quiet downtown of Wilmington, VT was Dot’s Restaurant- the famous restaurant in the heart of the small town. After all, no trip to Wilmington could be complete without a stop at Dot’s to get some cornbread and chili. Dot’s, which hung precariously to the side of the mountain just over the river was not expected to survive the storm. The flooding ripped through the building as is seen in the video below.
This video shows just how high the flooding came. The entire downtown has become a rushing river, disregarding the buildings that might be in the way. The building on the bottom right corner is Dot’s. The disbelief in the voices behind the camera is evident as one even remarks, “tomorrow when the water clears, what’s left of town?” This video captures the complete state of shock that people were left in after this storm.
During the storm, much of Dot's was destroyed. While the structure was salvageable, much of the decor was literally washed away. One of the pieces that were destroyed in the storm was the plush moose head that I had sat under so many times before. While the loss of such a seemingly insignificant piece of diner decor doesn't mean much on it's own, the loss of the moose head in Irene signified a much larger loss. Dot's had been stripped of its sense of identity in the storm by losing all of the little things that made it Dot's. Even after they re-opened, the empty wall where the moose head once resided felt almost all-consuming. Irene took more from Dot's than the floorboards and it would take time to recover.
