MARSHFIELD — At Marshfield’s Village Store, people come to get donated water because they have not been able to get it from their tap for nine days.
A local contractor, a brewery and the Vermont National Guard have all supplied water to the village. Residents not on the village water system are bringing 800 gallons a day from their springs and wells to the store, said Michelle Eddleman McCormick, one of the store’s owners, in an interview on Wednesday.
Eddleman McCormick said the village, which has about 120 households on its water and sewer system, has not had water or a functioning sewer system since 8 p.m. on July 10, the Monday that floods hit the state. The town’s emergency management director previously told VTDigger that a landslide had washed out the area where the village water system is located.
“There’s no water at all in the village of Marshfield,” Eddleman McCormick said, sitting on the front porch of the store as people brought kale donated fresh from a garden and a shovel for the tool library. Others came to shop for dehumidifiers, cigarettes and snacks. A truck from Wright Construction Services was parked outside with containers of water.
The water shortage came as news to state officials during a press conference with Gov. Phil Scott on Wednesday morning.
When Seven Days reporter Anne Wallace Allen, who lives in Marshfield, informed Scott of the problem, Commissioner of Public Safety Jennifer Morrison asked the reporter if the town’s emergency management director, Justin Campbell, had informed the State Emergency Operations Center.
“I know the National Guard has talked to him,” Wallace Allen responded.
“Reporting or chit-chatting with the Guard and receiving deliveries of water is not working the system that has been in place for a long time,” Morrison replied. “So we are happy to jump right on that as soon as we get a request from your municipal officials.”
Wallace Allen replied: “If (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) is delivering us water, surely they know that there’s a problem.”
“No, that’s not true,” Morrison said. The commissioner said that FEMA is delivering water to many places that do not have clean drinking water, which is different than having no water at all.
In response to a question earlier in the press conference, Scott said he was not aware of any communities without any water. As of Wednesday, 10 municipalities were under a boil water notice and one, Woodstock, was under a do-not-drink notice, he said.
Later in the press conference, Morrison said she had been handed a note saying the State Emergency Operations Center had been in contact with Marshfield leaders, who reported that it was on only a boil water notice. She said state officials would reach out again to make sure that information was correct.
It was not correct, Eddleman McCormick told VTDigger.
“I don’t know who they’re getting their information from because I know our emergency manager couldn’t have been clearer that our town does not have any water,” she said.
Campbell, the emergency manager, said in an interview with VTDigger that he contacted the State Emergency Operations Center almost every day after the flood, emphasizing that it has been a huge resource to him.
But he surmised that there was “some kind of disconnect” involving two messages he had sent to the state: first, that the town was under a boil-water order that was required because of damage to the water system, and second, that the town had no water.
“I’m quite certain that in all my communications regarding our water with the SEOC, I said we have no water,” Campbell said Wednesday.
He said the contractor that operates the water system issued a boil-water notice, as it was required to do if there was any damage to the system, and Campbell placed orders from the emergency operations center for potable water deliveries and portable toilets starting on July 12. He said he got a call back from the emergency operations center informing him he should contact a private vendor for the toilets, which he did.
He also made a request to the emergency operations center for portable showers and hand-washing stations, and spoke to someone there about finding a way to provide pressurized water to those units, he said.
On Folsom Hill Road, not far from the store, crews were working to restore the water and sewage lines severed when the road collapsed under the torrential rains last week.
Both Cabot and Marshfield suffered heavy flood damage.
Nick Seifert, who lives on Folsom Hill Road, said he woke up Tuesday last week to find the road gone, with 10-foot-wide chasms cutting across it. Unlike people in the village, he said, he has water from a well. The road had partially reopened Tuesday, allowing him to make a trip to the store.
“Great to be able to get out, get some groceries,” he said.
When Folsom Hill Road collapsed and became a river, Eddleman McCormick said, people came to the store for refuge. She said about three dozen people spent the night of July 10 at the store, including a family who had just come back from Boston Children’s Hospital with their disabled 3-year-old, as well as a woman in a wheelchair who had to be carried upstairs.
Between the debris from Folsom Hill Road that closed off Route 2 and another closure elsewhere on Route 2, the town was cut off, she said. It was not until noon the next day that a local road crew was able to push away enough rubble from Folsom Hill Road to make Route 2 passable, she said.
The store and the nonprofit that operates it, Cooperation Vermont, have been acting as a hub, Eddleman McCormick said. The store bought two sump pumps and a sewage pump, and has been lending them out, she said. It has also been coordinating volunteers and handing out donated cleaning supplies. People have been bringing donated prepared meals.
One of the customers, Andrew Giroux, said people were welcome to fill up on water at The Forest Farmers, a sugar house he works with. He was taking a break from working on a driveway that washed out onto a railroad bed that gives access to the sugaring operation.
Another customer, Dave D’Ambra, said there is no water at his house in the village. He said the flood removed about 20 feet of his property and exposed a sewer cover and pipe in his yard.
“Every single thing that has happened in this town has been provided by our neighbors helping our neighbors,” Eddleman McCormick said, tears in her voice. “I’m so grateful to live in such a beautiful community of people who know how to take care of each other.”
Peter D’Auria contributed reporting.